WASHINGTON—CUNA said that it is continuing its advocacy push and nationwide grassroots support for the bipartisan Senate regulatory relief bill leading up to the Senate Banking Committee’s markup of the bill, which began earlier this week.
The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act (S 2155) was introduced earlier this month by a bipartisan group of senators, and contains a number of regulatory relief provisions that would help credit unions more effectively serve their members.
“During the Thanksgiving break we did have a ‘thank you’ campaign we put together with our league partners in the states with the sponsor and co-sponsors,” said Richard Gose, CUNA’s chief political officer. “We will continue to push, continue our fight, and hopefully we’ll continue to see members of the Senate reach across the aisle in support of this bill.”
Passage of the bill, CUNA said, would achieve several goals of the trade association’s Campaign for Common-Sense Regulation, launched earlier this year.
A credit union-specific provision in S 2155 would grant credit unions parity with banks when making loans for the purchase of one-to-four unit, non-owner occupied residential property loans.
Such loans are designated real estate loans for banks, but business loans for credit unions, meaning they count against the statutory member business lending cap for credit unions, CUNA explained.
S 2155 would classify such credit union loans as real estate loans, freeing up credit unions to lend to more small businesses, which CUNA said it believes would make up to $4 billion in additional capital available.
Other provisions CUNA supports would:
- Treat loans held in portfolio by certain lenders as Qualified Mortgages
- Raise Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reporting thresholds to 500 closed-end and open-end loans in calendar year
- Apply the same consumer protections in place for mortgage lending to Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loans
- Remove the three-day wait period required under the Truth in Lending Act Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act integrated disclosure rule’s mortgage disclosure if a creditor extends a second offer of a credit union’s lower annual percentage rate to the consumer
- Provide legal immunity for properly trained, good-faith reporters of suspected financial elder abuse
- Require the Treasury to conduct a study on the risks that cyberthreats might pose to financial institutions