WASHINGTON—The House has passed a bill aimed at improving safeguards for seniors. NAFCU and CUNA, which have supported the legislation, had written House leaders ahead of the vote urging their support for the measure.
The bill now awaits Senate action.
HR 4538, the “Senior$afe Act of 2016,” would protect seniors from financial fraud while providing legal cover for financial services employees properly reporting suspicions of such abuse. The measure, introduced by Reps. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Bruce Poliquin (R-ME) would help credit unions and financial institutions adequately train their employees to best identify and report this predatory targeting of seniors to the appropriate authorities.
“It is imperative that credit unions be able to protect and serve their senior citizen members as they plan for retirement and seek counseling on how to properly manage their credit and savings,” NAFCU Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler wrote to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The letter was also sent to all members of the House.
CUNA also wrote to House leaders stating its “strong” support for the bill.
“The member-owner relationship between the credit union and its members puts credit union employees in a key position to detect suspicious activity around senior accounts because oftentimes the employees know the members well,” CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle wrote. “However, in some cases certain privacy laws make it difficult and sometimes even impossible, for employees to ring the alarm bell when exploitation is suspected.”
The bill unanimously passed the House Financial Services Committee last month.
Separately, NAFCU also sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform ahead of Wednesday’s hearing examining the impact of regulation on jobs, wages and economic recovery.
In the letter, Thaler wrote, "Despite the fact that credit unions are already heavily regulated, were not the cause of the financial crisis, and actually helped blunt the crisis by continuing to lend to credit worthy consumers during difficult times, they are still firmly within the regulatory reach of the Dodd-Frank Act, including all rules promulgated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau." He noted that despite credit unions' good behavior, they find themselves in the crosshairs of regulations designed for bad actors. "Accordingly, reducing burdensome and unnecessary regulatory compliance costs is a chief priority for NAFCU."
Thaler pointed out, "During the consideration of financial reform, NAFCU was concerned about the possibility of over-regulation of good actors such as credit unions, and this is why NAFCU was the only financial services trade association to oppose the CFPB having authority over credit unions. Unfortunately, many of our concerns about the increased regulatory burdens that credit unions would face under the CFPB have proven true."
"Since the second quarter of 2010, we have lost 1,499 federally-insured credit unions – over 20% of the industry. The overwhelming majority (96%) of these were smaller institutions below $100 million in assets."
In closing, Thaler wrote, "Credit unions are unique and their track record as good actors within the financial services industry proves they should not be grouped together with the unscrupulous entities that the CFPB seeks to restrict. Over-regulation has already had a substantially negative impact on credit unions and their members. Any additional unwarranted regulatory constraint is likely to further encumber products and services and ultimately hurt the consumers they mean to protect."