WASHINGTON—CUNA is praising a decision by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection to backburner any plans for new rules related to overdrafts.
As CUToday.info reported here, absent from the BCFP’s spring rulemaking agenda potential rulemaking on overdraft services for checking accounts. The BCFP said it has moved any such rules to its “inactive list.”
“The Bureau abandoning an overdraft rulemaking is a victory for credit unions, and the result of CUNA and the leagues advocating strongly on behalf of credit unions and members who choose to utilize overdraft products and services,” said Elizabeth Eurgubian, CUNA deputy chief advocacy officer. “We repeatedly expressed to the Bureau that overdraft services are provided by credit unions as a convenience for their members. A Bureau rulemaking would have likely placed barriers between this sought-after service and consumers.”
CUNA most recently expressed its concerns in a January letter to the Bureau in which it shared numerous concerns and encouraged the bureau to conduct additional studies on overdraft to ensure it has a full understanding of the benefits that come from these services.
The BCFP released reports in 2017, 2014, and 2013 on overdraft, all of which relied on transaction-level data from 2011 and 2012 provided by a small number of large banks.
The Bureau’s spring rulemaking agenda does include proposed rule activity on debt collection, home mortgage disclosures and short-term, small-dollar