America’s Credit Unions to Attend RNC After Considering Safety Issues
As the RNC kicks off, the credit union industry is keeping an eye on the fate of the NDAA in Congress.
After Saturday’s attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life, officials at America’s Credit Unions said they discussed the possibility of not attending the Republican National Convention (RNC) that began Monday in Milwaukee over safety concerns. Ultimately, it was decided that the credit union industry needed to be represented at the RNC.
During a call with members of the media Monday morning, America’s Credit Unions Chief Advocacy Officer Carrie Hunt said, “I will note that America’s Credit Unions is attending the Republican National Convention. Certainly, we had a moment of pause to take safety issues into consideration. But it is an important event to engage with policy makers all across the board. And we certainly will be seeing, you know, a history unveil there.”
Hunt added, “We are also attending the Democratic National Convention in a couple of weeks as well. As you know, America’s Credit Unions focuses on supporting members of Congress and does not, you know, jump in terms of the presidential election. And we certainly are watching races and supporting credit union champions and watching the progress of the election.
“I will note that of course we’ve been watching to see whether or not President Joe Biden stays in the race or not,” Hunt continued. “And, you know, he’s consistently said that he is staying in. So we will see if anything changes between now and the DNC in a couple of weeks.”
As one regulatory eye of the credit union industry is focused on the RNC this week, the other eye is keeping track of the status of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that has slowly become more of a credit union concern as it’s made its way through Congress.
Hunt said despite the fact the Senate is out this week for the RNC “we are still watching the NDAA in terms of when the Senate will in invoke cloture to have that move forward, and that still could happen next week. America’s Credit Unions continues to oppose any extraneous amendments being included in the NDAA.”
In a letter sent to Senate leaders on Monday, the Defense Credit Union Council also raised concerns about a proposed amendment by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) that includes an NDAA study that could exploit “military and veteran communities to benefit big box lenders and e-commerce giants” and help bolster the passage of the Credit Card Competition Act.
The DCUC letter stated several reasons to object to the study, including, “Under the Debit Networks Rules and industry PCI compliance, the credit/debit card front of card brands, retailers, processors and networks are not permitted to have access to, or retain, consumer level data such as names, addresses (or) account numbers attached to the card. Only limited information is contained on the track of the card, or the chip, or in the online message. This study proposal will need proper banking committee oversight if it seeks to invade the privacy of these veteran consumers.”
READ MORE: DCUC Letter to Senate Leadership