WASHINGTON—In separate letters, NAFCU has reiterated a number of requests with the CFPB, while telling NCUA it supports its advertising rule proposal.
In the former, NAFCU has reiterated the association's request that the CFPB delay the effective date of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) final rule, allow a voluntary compliance period, and execute a "good faith efforts" policy for examinations to allow a smooth, least-cost transition for credit unions.
The requests were sent in a letter to CFPB Interim Director Mick Mulvaney from NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger. Berger had previously requested a one-year delay of HMDA's implementation date, which is currently less than a month away, in a letter sent to Mulvaney after he was named acting director of the Bureau.
Based on the feedback from NAFCU's member credit unions, Berger recommended the Bureau take a flexible approach to ensuring compliance with the final HMDA rule. This would be accomplished by allowing voluntary compliance with the rule starting Jan. 1 but delaying mandatory compliance until Jan. 1, 2019, and adopting a policy for the Bureau to consider an institution's "good faith efforts" during examinations until 2020.
Berger wrote that those concessions "would permit credit unions to select the reporting option best suited for their individual institution based on their specific level of preparedness while still allowing those credit unions to rely on an official policy that good faith efforts towards compliance will be taken into consideration during examinations."
"In addition, if provided a voluntary compliance option, credit unions that are currently prepared to comply with the HMDA expansion may choose to report their data under the new requirements while being protected should any unexpected issues come up," Berger continued. "In effect, a voluntary compliance period would permit reporting institutions to test their systems in a 'real world' environment."
Meanwhile, in its letter to NCUA on its advertising proposal, NAFCU Regulatory Affairs Counsel Andrew Morris in a letter commended the agency for revisiting certain outdated advertising provisions for credit unions that will seek to allow the institutions greater flexibility in their advertising requirements.
In the letter, Morris wrote, "The proposed variant of the official advertising statement, ‘insured by NCUA,' is a welcome improvement to NCUA's rules that will accommodate more economical advertisements, the cost of which is often measured in terms of length or duration."
To better accommodate advertising on social media and text messaging platforms, Morris urged that the NCUA exempt social media "posts" and text messages from the requirement to display the official advertising statement. "NAFCU believes that the exemption afforded to brief radio and television ads should be extended to social media posts and text message ads," Morris wrote.
In the alternative, he added, the NCUA should consider a "one click away" rule – specifying that social media or text message advertisements that link to a page containing the official advertising statement meet the requirement.