WASHINGTON—Both CUNA and NAFCU have sent letters to the BCFP outlining specific ways the agency can change its rules, streamline regs and exempt credit unions overall.
CUNA submitted a copy of its new white paper, “CUNA’S Common-Sense Reforms To Bureau Of Consumer Financial Protection Rules And Procedures,” to the agency in response to its request for information on adopted regulations and new rulemaking authority. The white paper can be found in CUToday.info’s Open Vault.
“The Bureau’s rules should focus on Wall Street banks and the unregulated and under-regulated sectors of the financial services industry. If the Bureau spent less time regulating and supervising credit unions, it could spend more time on the abusers of consumers," the white paper reads.
CUNA highlighted the Bureau’s payday lending rule as an example of a rulemaking that “would have benefited from more external stakeholder engagement,” before moving forward.
“As the Bureau moves forward with new rulemakings, we encourage it to make use of the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) process to solicit additional stakeholder views, and work with the Small Business Administration (SBA) to ensure that the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) process is efficient and effective,” the paper reads. “Once rules are finalized, the guidance provided by the Bureau must be accurate, easy to understand, and timely; and, enforcement must be fair.”
Other Recommendations
CUNA also recommended that the Bureau:
- Apply a cost/benefit analysis to rules for credit unions
- Be wholly transparent in its reliance on data, enduring the public has access to the same information, absent confidential and personally identifiable information, it relies on as a foundation of its rulemakings
- Engage with NCUA throughout the entire rulemaking process, as NCUA understands the unique structure and business model of credit unions
NAFCU Provides Feedback
Meanwhile, NAFCU Regulatory Affairs Counsel Kaley Schafer sent a letter to the BCFP, also urging the Bureau to use its exemption authority to exclude credit unions from certain rules that were meant for larger financial institutions in order to provide the industry with regulatory relief. The association also recommended that the Bureau review and eliminate what it called outdated requirements.
"The adopted regulations include rulemakings adopted under Federal consumer financial law, as well as those laws that were adopted pursuant to specific requests by Congress," Schafer wrote. "NAFCU has previously commented on these adopted regulations and urges the Bureau to look at the impacts these regulations have on credit unions. NAFCU specifically urges the Bureau to review and eliminate outdated requirements, and those that are unduly burdensome."
NAFCU Recommendations
Specifically, Schafer recommended the Bureau:
- Include government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) loans as a permanent category under the qualified mortgage safe harbor exemption
- Revise the qualified mortgage's definition regarding the debt-to-income ratio
- Clarify integrated mortgage disclosure rules to ensure accurate information is provided to consumers
- Extend the mortgage servicing rule's small servicer exemption to exclude successors in interest and force-placed hazard insurance requirements
- Increase the mortgage servicing rule's grace period for servicers to halt foreclosure proceedings when loss mitigation applications have been filed
- Revise the broad definition of loan originator
- Exclude credit unions from the remittance transfer rule, or alternatively, increase the number of transfers allowed under the safe harbor exemption
- Rescind the prepaid accounts rule in its entirety, or exclude credit unions from the rule
- Exclude credit unions from debt collection rulemakings
- Exclude credit unions from required small business lending data collection under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act
- Exempt credit unions from any rulemaking regarding access to financial records.