WASHINGTON – The two chief sponsor of CURIA last night introduced a new version of the regulatory relief bill for credit unions in an effort to move the bill that has been stalled in the House for the past five years.
Introduction of the CU Regulatory Relief Act comes as a congressional hearing on CURIA is commencing Thursday, but the new bill is carefully crafted to eliminate the two provisions of CURIA targeted by the powerful banking lobby: enactment of a risk-based capital system for credit unions and an increase on the limits for member business loans.
Instead CURRA would selectively lift the MBL limit by exempting loans made in qualified underserved areas and to religious groups from the current 12.25% of assets cap. It also avoids the risk-based capital proposal.
Brad Thaler, senior lobbyist for NAFCU, said the introduction of the new bill is aimed at expediting passage of a regulatory relief measure through the House, so it could be taken up by the Senate before the legislative calendar grows short. “The hope is that we can get this passed rather quickly and get it on the Senate agenda,” Thaler told The Credit Union Journal last night.
The bill has several CURIA provisions, including: allowing community chartered credit unions to branch into underserved areas; exempting credit unions from the pre-merger notification requirements of the Clayton Antitrust Act; and increasing the amount individual credit unions can invest in a CUSO from the current 1% of capital to 3%.
But it also has several new proposals, such as allowing credit unions to provide payday loans to anyone in their fields of membership (expanding on the powers to offer wire transfers and check cashing in the 2006 regulatory relief bill); allowing credit unions that convert to community charters to retain their select groups upon meeting certain conditions set by NCUA; allowing NCUA, instead of Congress, to determine permissible investments for credit unions; easing credit union participation in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Section 504 program; and giving NCUA greater flexibility in setting the interest rate ceiling.
CUNA President Dan Mica praised the introduction of the bill, coming while more than 4,000 credit union executives and directors are in Washington for his group’s annual Government Affairs Conference, but he said CUNA still is focused on the two main CURIA provisions absent from the new bill. “We will continue to urge Congress to consider (CURIA), and will persist in seeking co-sponsors for this important legislation,” said Mica in a prepared statement.
The chief sponsors of CURRA are Reps. Paul Kanjorski, D-Penn., and Ed Royce, R-Calif., who also are the two chief sponsors of CURIA. Kanjorski, who has become the top credit union ally in Congress, was also one of two co-sponsors of HR 1151, the landmark 1998 CU Membership Access Act.
At Thursday’s hearing, the House Financial Services Committee will give representatives from NCUA, CUNA, NAFCU and NASCUS and opportunity to make their case for regulatory relief for credit unions; then the chairmen of the American Bankers Association and Independent Community Bankers Association will get the chance to knock it down.
