ARLINGTON, Va. — One industry leader is not worried about credit unions being able to comply with the CARD Act on Aug. 20.
"I think credit unions expect to be ready," said Anthony Demangone, director of regulatory compliance for NAFCU. "Even though this was a last-minute change, credit unions have been a having a lot of emergency meetings. The folks I spoke to seem to have a plan."
Although Demangone expects "a majority of the credit unions to be able to comply," it won't be easy, he stressed. "They are moving due dates, sending out new periodic statements, changing their mailings," he said.
Demangone noted that usually when a financial institution needs to change its periodic statements, the preparations for the change usually take at least six months. "This 90-day turnaround was really short," he said.
For that reason, NAFCU has been in contact with NCUA, sharing the problems credit unions expect to have. "They understand it will be a challenge," NAFCU said of NCUA's response.
Demangone said that NAFCU is also working hard to help credit unions in any way it can. "When the Credit Card Act came out in May, we put out an overview available to our members," he said. "We have a compliance blog, and we update it every day. We went through every provision.
The blog now has more than 1,000 subscribers, Demangone noted. "In addition we've been talking to our members," he said. "This has been the busiest two months we've hand since I've been here."
At press time, Demangone told Credit Union Journal NAFCU had spoken to eight credit unions that morning, and five of those conversations were on the Credit Card Act, Demangone said.
