The Interchange Fight & CFPB: Carrie Hunt's Priorities

Carrie Hunt’s name is a familiar one in the credit union industry. From her leadership positions at NAFCU to serving as president/CEO of Virginia Credit Union League and now as chief advocacy officer at America’s Credit Unions, Carrie Hunt finds herself in the middle of organizational changes and political and policy fights that could shape the future of the industry.

CU Times spoke with Hunt Wednesday morning, 13 days into her new role and after her first GAC speech representing America’s Credit Unions.

Hunt said the number one priority in her job right now is protecting the interchange system on the legislative and lobbying fronts, trying to convince lawmakers to stay off of the Interchange Bill because “we certainly don’t want this to necessarily come to a vote unless we are for sure we absolutely have the votes.”

Just last week, credit unions saw a glimmer of hope on this issue as Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would potentially stop the Federal Reserve’s finalization of its proposed debit interchange rule.

CU Times: What are the other issues you’re focused on?

Hunt: The number one issue that I hear from credit unions continually is the dramatic increase in fraud and the fact that the system we have in place don’t fully cover fraud costs. So the cost of doing business as a credit union, no matter what the size, is dramatically increasing.

And I’m going to go so far as to say that we have an interchange system that works, you know, in general, but those fraud costs in particular we think we need to adjust it back in the other direction, not continuing to reduce things more.

And we’re seeing more and more bills relative to interchange at the state level. Not the same type of legislation that we see at the national level, but typically these bills are exempting sales tax from interchange or other types of exemptions. And these bills, you know, if you look at them as a whole, it really just creates a lot of potential disruption to the system, and a lot of them aren’t even workable from a pure technical standpoint.

America’s Credit Unions still very strongly believes that we need merchants to follow the same data security standards as regulated financial institutions. And this is, you know, one of the underlying factors in why we’re fighting so hard on interchange.

If you were to pick my number two [priority], it’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s continued focus and categorization of pretty much all fees as junk fees. And from America’s Credit Unions’ perspective, there is a big difference between a fee for a service versus including all fees and the cost of credit, which is one road the CFPB is looking to go down or creating this split in the market by trying to influence larger institutions to not charge certain fees either by press release or now by formal rulemaking. And we think that’s going to have an extremely detrimental impact on all institutions.

CU Times: Do you think America’s Credit Unions can get ahead of this issue to slow it down or maybe stop it?

Hunt: I will say that there is always pros and cons to having something go through the rulemaking process. And I think with overdraft, in particular, while we wish the CFPB weren’t regulating at all, I do think that having the opportunity to weigh in formally, it’s incredibly important because it sets up the stage for either some process under the Congressional Review Act, or it creates the opportunity for litigation. And I think ultimately, based on some of the issues that the CFPB has raised and the tactics and approach they’re taking with their rulemaking, we very likely will and could end up there. So I do think that we will certainly have other opportunities and continued opportunities to make sure that we’re protecting the interest of credit unions.

CU Times: Can you talk about how you’re building your new team?

Hunt: America’s Credit Unions has strong players from legacy CUNA and legacy NAFCU. And as you saw from my talk at GAC, we are combining and refocusing and making sure that we are doing what credit unions need and want. And I think that is our number one guiding light. And I feel very fortunate that I get to work with such a strong team, including the communications team here at America’s Credit Unions. And together we have the ability to really impact change for credit unions. And that’s incredibly exciting.

CU Times: Just days into the new job, have you found your footing?

Hunt: I pretty much had my footing on day one and that’s not to say we’re not reshuffling and realigning and doing all of those things, but, you know, I was at NAFCU for 17 years and headed up all the national advocacy for eight, and at the league obviously we were heavily engaged on the advocacy front as well, and work extremely closely with both CUNA and NAFCU to achieve our goals. So I absolutely think that yes, we are making sure that we are structuring our teams to be efficient and effective. But we’re firing on all cylinders on day one, and I think that credit unions deserve no less.