CRA: Not on My Watch

The round-up editorial in the Jan. 9 issue of Credit Union Times offered interesting insight into your outlook for 2008.

However, we strongly disagree with your comments on the Community Reinvestment Act, which clearly has no merit when applied to credit unions. The reason CRA was imposed on banks was because of their “redlining” practices. Former Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm said it best in responding to former NCUA Board Chairman Norm D’Amours’ proposal to subject credit unions to CRA-like requirements: “By their very nature, credit unions serve their communities…They have little ability to do business with anyone else. Requiring credit unions to document the obvious, that they are serving their members, takes community reinvestment regulation to ever more absurd extremes.”