WASHINGTON—CUNA and several of its member credit unions participated in the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy Financial Roundtable this week.
The discussion featured the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s request for information on the small business lending market, according to the trade group.
“During the roundtable, the credit unions discussed challenges and opportunities in the small business lending market, and how unnecessary compliance burdens can negatively impact availability of credit for credit union members,” said Leah Dempsey, CUNA senior director of advocacy and counsel. “We appreciate the credit unions that traveled from throughout the country to share concerns with CFPB and SBA staff and look forward to future discussions on this important to topic to ensure that all credit union members can continue to access small business loans.”
CUNA noted that it has participated in previous discussions with the SBA, the CFPB, and the SBA Office of Advocacy on this topic.
CUNA, in its response to the CFPB’s request for information on the small business lending market, said credit unions are concerned about any potential rulemaking in this area, since collecting additional data on small business lending will create significant barriers to being able to continue to provide small business loans to members.
CUNA said it also sought to highlight the ways credit unions’ field of membership rules likely renders any data that would be collected as useless, since it is confined to specific locations or member demographics.