WASHINGTON—A congressional hearing on why it’s so difficult to start up financial institutions at which a credit union CEO had been scheduled to appear has been rescheduled for this week. The hearing was cancelled last week due to weather.
Testifying on behalf of NAFCU will be Keith Stone, president and CEO of The Finest Federal Credit Union in New York City, a relatively recent start-up credit union. Stone replaces Ken Krueger, CEO of Lutheran Federal Credit Union in St. Louis, who had originally been scheduled to testify at the hearing titled, “Ending the De Novo Drought: Examining the Application Process for De Novo Financial Institutions.”
The hearing, set for Tuesday at 2 p.m., is being held by the House Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, which is chaired by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO).
Stone will testify alongside banking industry witnesses.
Also in Washington, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Friday announced Friday it is seeking comment on a bureau plan to assess its rule on international remittances. CUNA stated that it has long believed the rule, which took effect in October 2013, is overly broad, and feedback from member credit unions is that this rule has harmed consumers by forcing them out of this market.
“We appreciate that the CFPB recognizes their statutory mandate to review the impact of the remittances rules on consumers. We hope that they pay particular attention to the concerns credit unions have raised about the impact of this rule on credit union members,” said Ryan Donovan, CUNA’s chief advocacy officer. “A recent CUNA member survey showed that over half (55%) of CUs that have offered international remittances sometime during the past five years have either cut back (27%) or stopped offering them (28%), primarily due to burden from CFPB regulations. This very serious problem should be addressed by the CFPB during this review of the remittances rule.”