WASHINGTON—Ahead of oral arguments set for April 16 in the appeal of the lower-court decision in a lawsuit challenging the NCUA's field of membership (FOM) rule, the American Bankers Association (ABA) has filed a new brief arguing that credit unions engage in redlining.
NAFCU, CUNA and CUNA Mutual filed a joint amicus brief in the case.
In its new brief, the ABA claims that the NCUA's 2016 FOM rule "gives credit unions complete freedom to deny service to all or any part of the urban core of the communities that they serve."
In March 2018, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upheld two challenged portions of NCUA's FOM rule and struck down two provisions in a lawsuit filed against the agency by the ABA. The NCUA appealed the decision in May and ABA cross-appealed in June.
The provisions declared to exceed the NCUA's statutory authority include those that automatically qualify a combined statistical area (CSA) with fewer than 2.5 million people to be a local community and the increase to one million people the population limit for rural districts. The court's decision led to 43 credit unions reverting their new FOM charters, NAFCU noted.