ARLINGTON, Va. — The National Association of Federal Credit Unions is lobbying President Obama to consider a credit union representative for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
The vacant seat is the result of
In a letter sent to the White House Monday, NAFCU president and CEO Dan Berger reminded the president of the "vital role" that credit unions play in the economy and cited a study the trade group recently commissioned that examined what would happen to the U.S. economy if eliminating the tax exemption significantly reduced the presence of CUs.
The study identified the total benefit to U.S. consumers from the presence of credit unions in financial markets to be $153 billion between 2005-13, or $17 billion a year.
"Further, credit unions continued to help the American economy by lending throughout the financial crisis when the banks, both large and small, stopped doing so," Berger noted.
And while the health of the CU community continues to improve, "today's regulatory environment is characterized by overregulation and high compliance burdens," wrote Berger.
"The credit union industry works to mitigate some of these issues through its robust dialogue with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and it would be instrumental to that dialogue to have a member on the Board with deep credit union knowledge and experience. A well-educated, experienced credit union CEO would add value to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by offering both the credit union perspective and, more generally, the perspective of smaller community lenders."
