A year after the Credit Union Small Business Jobs Creation Act was introduced to raise the member business lending cap from 12.25% to 27.5%, the urgency to boost that threshold is just as fresh as the day the most recently version of the proposed legislation debuted on Valentine's Day in 2013.

Introduced by Rep. Edward Royce (R-Calif.), the act would give the NCUA Board the authority to approve an application by an insured credit union to make one or more member business loans that would result in a total amount of such loans outstanding at any one time of up to 27.5% of the cooperative's total assets. That credit union would have to meet certain specified safety and soundness criteria in order to bump up its MBL cap.

The NCUA Board would also develop a tiered approval process, including lending standards, under which an insured credit union gradually increases the amount of member business lending in a manner consistent with safe and sound operations.