WASHINGTON — NCUA Board Vice Chairman Rodney Hood came out strongly against credit unions being covered by the Community Reinvestment Act at CUNA's Governmental Affairs Conference, making the case that the current economic conditions show CUs are helping their members not because they have to do so but because it's the right thing to do.

Hood told the attendees at the Mar. 4 general session about a case of a single mother in North Carolina who had been made a toxic mortgage but had been able to make the payments until the rates reset and she was in danger of losing her home. She turned to her credit union for help in moving into a better mortgage, Hood said, an example of a CU doing something "not because there was some punitive rule that said they had to, but because it was the right thing to do."

Hood noted as well that the organization which had made the bad mortgage had s CRA requirement, indicating that merely having CRA was not enough to make sure that a financial institution does the right thing — something CUs do because that is the sort of institutions they are. — [email protected].