Private Insurance Bid Out of CURIA

WASHINGTON – Representatives of CUNA and NAFCU, meeting yesterday to discuss ongoing drafting of CURIA, had already agreed to leave out a provision eliminated at the last minute from last year’s regulatory relief bill which would have allowed privately insured credit unions to join the Federal Home Loan Bank System. The credit union lobby will try again to pass provisions not included in the regulatory relief bill, but not the FHLB bid, sources told The Credit Union Journal. The provision was a major priority of then-House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley, who has since retired from Congress. The Ohio Republican was convinced of its merits by ASI, the lone surviving private provider of deposit insurance for credit unions, which is located in Dublin, Ohio, near Oxley’s district. But the measure was ardently opposed by several CURIA champions, including its chief sponsor Pennsylvania Democrat Paul Kanjorski, who invoked the crisis surrounding the failure of private deposit insurers for thrifts in Maryland, and for credit unions in Rhode Island, more than a decade ago.