WASHINGTON CUNA and NAFCU have been invited to testify at an April 10 hearing by the House Financial Services Committee, which has begun preliminary work to draft a regulatory relief bill.
NAFCU is expected to discuss a regulatory relief bill it is working to develop with lawmakers that would include the long-sought increase in the member business loan cap and an allowance to raise supplementary capital, as well as give NCUA the authority to mold new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regulations to credit unions; allow NCUA to ease rules to equalize them with state rules; and to modernize the Central Liquidity Facility.
“It’s a more expansive look at the burden being put on the entire industry,” NAFCU President Fred Becker said this afternoon, about the additional provisions in their proposed bill. “We’re hoping to get the regulatory tidal wave turned around, as opposed to one or two issues.”
The bill being drafted by NAFCU would give NCUA power to grant parity to federal charters on a broader state regulation; give NCUA authority to delay and/or refine CFPB regulations, provided the objectives of the CFPB regulations remain; modify the Central Liquidity Facility by removing subscription requirement for membership and permanently removing the CLF borrowing cap; enact a risk-based capital system for credit unions; and waive nominal capital requirements for newly chartered credit unions.
The credit union hearing will take place the week before a hearing on bank regulatory issues and is part of a series of hearings being held by the Financial Services Committee to discuss the effects of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
