WASHINGTON–CUNA CEO Jim Nussle has sent a letter to the House Committee on Financial Services regarding the Financial CHOICE Act ("CHOICE Act").
The letter follows Nussle’s testimony before the committee last week, in which he reiterated the trade group’s concerns over “unnecessary, overly burdensome, and duplicative regulations.”
The follow-up letter focuses provisions related to NCUA, the CFPB, the Durbin interchange amendment, and housing and mortgage issues, as well as other provisions impacting credit unions’ ability to serve their members, and urges Congress to go further in removing regulatory burden.
In the letter CUNA says it:
- Supports Section 653 of the discussion draft, which would increase the membership of the NCUA board from three to five members. Sec. 1141 – Budget Transparency for the NCUA.
- It supports provisions that would allow members of the credit union community to be able to examine and comment on the agency’s budget before adoption.
- It supports Section 1186 of the discussion draft that would require greater transparency with respect to the overhead transfer rate, that is, the means through which the NCUA allocates resources annually from the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF) to cover insurance related expenses.
- It is opposed to moving NCUA into the appropriations process (Section 663 of the discussion draft).
- It supports Sec. 1186 – Extension of examination cycle of the National Credit Union Administration to 18 months.
- It supports reform of the financial institution examinations process to create an independent ombudsman and independent examination appeals procedures (Section 1136 and HR 1941, the Financial Institutions Examination and Reform Act favorably reported by the Financial Services Committee on July 29, 2015).
- It supports changing the CFPB’s leadership from one director to a five-person commission
The lengthy letter goes on to speak to numerous other provisions within the legislation. A full copy of the legislation is available in CUToday.info’s The gov here.