WASHINGTON—CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle has written to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, thanking him for conducting a roundtable discussions with credit unions earlier in April, and providing additional information about how regulations can be more manageable for credit unions.
Treasury conducted the roundtable to gather information as it prepares a paper in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order on core financial regulation principles issued in February.
“Credit unions’ ability to provide safe and affordable financial services has been significantly impeded in the last several years by a regulatory scheme rigged to favor the large banks and non-bank financial services providers that can afford to absorb regulatory changes,” Nussle wrote.
The letter includes recommendations to streamline regulations for credit unions regarding:
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau procedure and oversight
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Residential mortgage lending
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Non-mortgage regulatory requirements
- Other rules such as the Federal Communication Commission’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act order and the Department of Defense’s new Military Lending Act requirements
The letter also emphasizes that streamlining, simplifying and better targeting regulations to the problem actors in the industry will weed out the bad financial actors and help credit unions better serve their members.
“CUNA continues to support a moratorium on new regulatory requirements for credit unions, particularly the rules under consideration by the CFPB regarding arbitration, small dollar loans, debt collection, overdraft protection and small business loan data collection,” the letter reads. “Further study on regulatory burden in the industry must be conducted before new regulations are implemented by the federal agencies.
“Furthermore, we support efforts to amend current regulatory requirements to better enable credit unions to operate and serve their members,” it adds.