GAC Spurs Congressional Action On CUIssues

WASHINGTON - (03/03/05) -- A key congressman introducedlegislation Wednesday that would ease tough rules governingaccounting for credit union mergers, the latest in a flurry ofcredit union-related legislation unveiled in Congress over the pasttwo weeks. The bill, co-sponsored by Spencer Bachus of Alabama,would redefine net worth in the Federal CU Act to allow creditunions to continue the pooling of net capital after mergers, apractice to be barred next year under new financial accountingstandards. It's introduction came as thousands of credit unionexecutives were lobbying Congress during CUNA's GAC and followed ameasure introduced last week to allow credit unions to offerservices outside their membership, and another one introduced theweek before to allow credit unions to increase their businesslending. And lawmakers promised this week at the GAC to introducethe CURIA bill, a combination of some of these proposals combinedwith others. Bachus is the chairman of the House Financial ServicesSubcommittee on Financial Institutions and has power to influenceimportant bills.