WASHINGTON—The BCFP has received recommendations on its future rulemaking from NAFCU and CUNA.
The trades each wrote letters to the Bureau in response to its request for information (RFI) on the effectiveness and accessibility of its guidance materials and activities, including its implementation support.
NAFCU stated that it appreciates the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection's commitment to improving its guidance and implementation support to ease credit unions' compliance burdens, but urges the Bureau to slow down its future rulemakings so interpretative fixes aren't necessary.
NAFCU’s Recommendations
Regulatory Affairs Counsel Andrew Morris signed the letter and he highlighted several ways the Bureau could improve its guidance and implementation support moving forward in NAFCU’s view, including:
- Ensuring the interpretive guidance is consistently organized in rule commentary
- Ensuring that problematic provisions of rules are addressed through amendments, not guidance
- Making greater use of explanatory fact patterns to illustrate the application of its rules
- Publishing the guidance developed for public webinars or in response to regulatory inquiries
"NAFCU strongly encourages the Bureau to continue publishing guidance and implementation support materials to ease compliance burdens for small entities," Morris concluded in his letter. "We urge the Bureau to publish such materials alongside final rules or—at the very least—well in advance of effective dates."
He added that the Bureau should integrate is rule commentary within the official interpretations and rule appendices when appropriate while "ensuring that the operation of the rule itself does not depend on commentary or other supplementary guidance to clarify critical implementation details."
CUNA’s Feedback
Similarly, CUNA stated that the Bureau has several ways in which it can assist the credit union industry in complying with regulatory requirements, sharing its feedback through the trade association’s white paper to the Bureau—"White Paper on Common-Sense Reforms" for the BCFP.
“The past several years has seen a massive increase in consumer financial services regulations. The increase in regulations is particularly burdensome for credit unions which, unlike massive banks, do not have dozens of legal experts in house to assist with compliance questions,” reads the white paper.
CUNA’s Recommendations
To enhance the Bureau’s ability to assist the industry with consumer financial services rules and requirements, CUNA recommends the Bureau:
- Accept inquiries regarding compliance with its regulations and guidance by telephone, email, or through its website, and responses should be provided by Bureau staff within 24-48 hours of receiving the inquiry
- Track questions it receives from the industry, and use those questions to make annual adjustments to regulations or commentaries to address ambiguities
- Publish written guidance or Frequently Asked Questions with written interpretations to assist industry stakeholders on regulatory implementation
- Conduct interactive webinars on proposed and final rulemakings that should provide information about regulatory requirements and practical examples of how to comply with new requirements and allow for questions and answers
- Provide both comprehensive final rule summaries and short one-page summaries for final rules. When possible, CUNA strongly encourages the Bureau to provide flow charts that illustrate how to comply with various regulations
- Place all its compliance resources, including recorded webinars, final rule summaries and FAQ documents, in a central location on its website for easy and quick access
- Frequently update compliance guides on its website so industry stakeholders always have the most recent information accessible
- Conduct annual outreach with industry stakeholders, especially credit unions, to receive feedback on its current compliance resources and what additional resources would be helpful to the industry