WASHINGTON-As the credit union faithful hiked the Hill during CUNA's GAC, they were told to pound away at one single message: lift the member business lending cap, and we will help create jobs at no cost to the taxpayer.
Although many credit unions aren't even close to bumping up against the 12.25% MBL cap and are more concerned with capital reform, CUNA insisted the primary Hike The Hill message should be pushing for the lift of the MBL cap.
While capital reform may be the bigger issue for more CUs, CUNA CEO Dan Mica explained there isn't a vehicle for moving capital reform forward. In essence, CUs need to pick the battles they can win, and right now, the one they can win, Mica suggested, is the MBL cap. "What is at bat right now are jobs bills," he said. "Lifting the member business lending cap doesn't cost taxpayers a dime, and it creates $10 billion for small businesses, which means 108,000 new jobs...If we can't get this done, the next steps for capital reform will be next to impossible."
Still, there are other legislative issues credit unions are monitoring, and CUNA provided an overview of those:
• Consumer Financial Protection Agency/Regulatory Restructuring - though CUNA doesn't support the creation of CFPA, it is focusing it's efforts on making the end result of this legislation "less bad" for credit unions, rather than trying to kill it off entirely - again, a practical choosing of battles that can be won.
• Community Reinvestment Act - rumblings of imposing CRA on CUs continue, and CUs need to be keeping an eye on this as it's expected to come up before the year is out, CUNA's John Magill said. The CU message should be that they have always been committed to serving all aspects of their membership and that imposing CRA would only make it harder for CUs to serve the underserved. Additionally, lawmakers should remove the statutory limits on service to underserved that resulted from an American Bankers Association lawsuit.
• Systemic Risk Issues - legislation has been amended so the new rules would apply only to institutions above the $10-billion threshold, meaning only three CUs - Navy FCU, (North Carolina) State Employees CU and Pentagon FCU - will be affected.
• Overdraft Protection Reform - CUNA said the message here is to urge lawmakers to give the new rules an opportunity to work before enacting any additional legislation.
• Interchange Fees - changes to interchange fees could significantly harm credit unions' abilities to continue offering credit and debit cards to their members.
