A CUNA representative drew the House Financial Services Committee a stark picture of the difficulties many consumers would face if the Committee moved forward with proposed changes to laws regulating overdraft protection.

“CUNA is convinced that the provisions in H.R. 3904, particularly the provisions that would limit the number of overdraft fees that could be charged per month and per year, would simply end overdraft programs–to the detriment of many consumers who truly value these programs,”  Rodney Staatz, CEO of State Employees Credit Union of Maryland wrote in prepared testimony for the committee hearing this morning.

“Consumers will incur more non-sufficient fund fees with none of the benefits of having many transactions honored. They will pay more merchant return check fees and have more bad checks reported to consumer reporting agencies. Merchants will deal with more bounced checks and have more bills that are currently paid under automated bill-paying services rejected. Inevitably, other adjustments will be made in checking account services and maintenance fees that will impact a wide range of account holders. All consumers lose under this scenario,” he added.