The Republican-led House of Representatives passed a group of bills last week supported by CUNA and NAFCU.
"These are small steps forward on regulatory relief," NAFCU Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler said. "We appreciate the quick action in the committee and on the House floor in moving these non-controversial, bipartisan measures forward, particularly the privacy notice bill. We hope this opens the door for further action on regulatory relief bills."
Thaler said the early passage of the bills gives the Senate a lot of time to tackle them.
"We continue to talk to the Senate about regulatory relief," he said. "These overwhelming bipartisan votes in the House definitely help."
CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle applauded House Speaker John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for bringing the legislation to the House floor.
"Moving the needle forward to reduce regulatory burden allows not-for-profit, member-owned, community-based financial institutions to focus on the needs of their credit union members," he said. "I look forward to continuing to work with the House and the Senate to pass regulatory relief legislation for credit unions."
Among the bills passed, CUNA Chief Advocacy Officer Ryan Donovan said H.R. 601 would likely have the greatest impact on credit unions.
"It would eliminate a very costly and burdensome requirement that credit unions send annual privacy notifications to their members," he said. "We have long supported this legislation."
H.R. 601, the Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Act, which was introduced by Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), would only require financial institutions to mail privacy policy notifications to their members/customers when the privacy policy has changed.
Both CUNA and NAFCU also support H.R. 1265, the Bureau Advisory Commission Transparency Act, which was introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) and would apply the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act to the CFPB.
"In effect, this would ensure CFPB Credit Union Advisory Council meetings are open to the public and all minutes and reports are made available to the public," NAFCU Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt said in a letter to House leadership.
"NAFCU believes the Credit Union Advisory Council plays an important role in informing the CFPB of how various rules and regulations would impact credit unions in practice, and encourages the bureau to take these discussions into account throughout the rule-making process," Hunt added.
The House also passed H.R. 299, the Capital Access for Small Community Financial Institutions Act of 2015, introduced by Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) and Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio). The CUNA-backed bill would allow state-chartered, privately-insured credit unions to apply for membership with the Federal Home Loan Bank.
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