MADISON, Wis. — Opening an apparent new state-by-state strategy by the banking lobby to bring credit unions under Community Reinvestment Act compliance, the Wisconsin Bankers Association introduced a bill in the state legislature Thursday requiring CUs to "document all efforts serving low income and minority consumers."
The measure introduced in the Wisconsin Assembly by Rep. Mark Gottlieb (R. Port Washington) drew immediate objections from the Wisconsin Credit Union League, which called the proposed measure another attempt by banks to cover "their own hide" in failing to serve this constituency.
In a statewide press release, Kurt Bauer, president/CEO of WBA who has long been an anti-CRA champion within the affiliated American Bankers Association, cited surveys done by GAO and the bank-linked National Community Reinvestment Coalition as showing CU performance in CRA is "lackluster" at best.
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"This bill is not just about creating regulatory parity between competing financial institutions," said Bauer. "It is about insuring that taxpayers and lower income consumers receive the social benefits they were promised in exchange for granting a multibillion dollar tax subsidy to an increasingly aggressive member of the financial sector."
The Gottlieb bill, noted the WBA, "also formalizes a process to allow a state-chartered credit union to convert to a state-chartered mutual savings institution."
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