WASHINGTON-The credit union lobby is working hard this Congress to keep the growing financial reform legislative agenda from affecting credit unions.
Among the bills the lobbyists are trying to prevent from impacting credit unions are proposed reforms of the financial regulatory system; creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency; the continued effort to allow troubled borrowers to ask a bankruptcy court to amend the terms of the mortgages (known as cramdowns); and a bill that would allow regulators to get involved in executive compensation if the regulator feels the compensation might affect the finances of the institution.
NAFCU told key lawmakers last week just before the House Financial Services Committee endorsed the executive compensation bill that having NCUA write regulations in conjunction with other regulators who supervise for-profit, stock-issuing entities is therefore superfluous. "Simply stated, credit unions are not guided by the profit motive or stock price manipulation that created the need for this legislation," said NAFCU President Fred Becker in a letter to Committee Chairman Barney Frank and Rep. Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the panel.
The bill, like the regulatory reform, consumer agency and cramdown measure, are all part of the fallout from the financial crisis.
"It seems like we're just playing defense more and more," said one credit union lobbyist, who worried that opposing the variety of bills will affect the credit union lobby when it pushes bills it favors, such as expansion of member business lending.
