CBA lobbyist expects 1995 to yield consumer legislation.

WASHINGTON -- With landmark banking legislation enacted this year, Nancy Camm, the Consumer Bankers Association's new lobbyist, predicts that next year will be the year of the consumer.

"You had major, expansive bank bills pass this year, and look what was included," said Ms. Camm, referring to the interstate branching, regulatory relief, and community development bank bills that passed Congress.

"What are you going to have left next year?" she asked. "Next year is going to be a consumer year."

Ms. Camm, who joined the CBA with the title of manager of congressional relations in June, brings 17 years of experience with Bank of America to her new post at the CBA.

She spent seven years in Los Angeles running the bank's Southern California government affairs office before coming to the bank's Washington government relations office in late 1983 to work on tax and agriculture issues.

When CBA asked her to join its ranks, she didn't see it as much of a change.

"I'd worked with CBA for years, so the issues were not new," Ms. Camm said. "B of A is a retail bank, not wholesale, so we were primarily interested in consumer issues, at least before we got more into securities."

"She'd been the person that the CBA would go to on a whole variety of issues," said Alfred Pollard, senior director of the Bankers Roundtable. "She brings a wide background with her."

Mr. Pollard, who was senior vice president of government relations for Security Pacific Corp., worked with Ms. Camm after the bank merged with Bank of America in 1992.

Although Ms. Camm declined to comment specifically on what tack she and the CBA would take in areas such as fair lending, Community Reinvestment Act revisions, and bank fees and services, she did crown her priority list with these three topics.

She said that the CBA board meeting scheduled for January 1995 would provide more specific direction regarding these subjects.

However, Ms. Camm did go so far as to say that her organization is interested in avoiding legislation mandating bank disclosure in the sate of uninsured products such as mutual funds.

"We're working to make sure the perception is there that banks are adequately disclosing," she said. "If we can do it to satisfy customers, satisfy regulators, and satisfy members of Congress that there is enough disclosure out there, then we would prefer to work that way rather than to keep going through legislation."

Ms. Camm described mutual funds as one of a handful of congressional "lightning rod" issues -- subjects that, although they didn't see legislative results before the end of this Congress, ought to attract attention next year.

Extending CRA to nonbank financial institutions will return as one such hot button for Congress, she predicted.

"When Congressman Joseph Kennedy held his consumer subcommittee hearings on extending CRA to other organizations, he was basically saying to credit unions and mortgage bankers, 'You get some benefit out of customers or deposits in a community, so what are you giving back?'" Ms. Camm said.

"Nothing happened, because it was too late in the session. But it did tell you that that was a lightning rod -- you know that's going to be a focus next year."

Insurance redlining and consumer credit reporting reform are two other areas that could crop up on Capitol Hill, Ms. Camm said.

The Consumer Reporting Reform Act, which only needed Senate approval in order to be cleared for President Clinton's signature, fell by the wayside in the last week of the 103d Congress.

"Unless the fat lady sings during recess, I think we're going to get fair credit reporting back," Ms. Camm said.

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