Crawl Before You Walk

Speaking before the National Associations of State Credit Union Supervisors, NCUA Board Member Gigi Hyland suggested credit unions “should crawl before they walk” when increasing their capacity to make business loans, and that Congress should consider raising the current cap on member business loans of 12.25 percent of assets “in stages” for safety and soundness reasons.

Upon hearing about this remark, CUNA President and CEO Dan Mica blew a gasket.

“What Board Member Hyland suggests is addressed in the Kanjorski-Royce bill by raising the business lending cap to only 25 percent. We would like to see the cap taken off of member business lending by credit unions,” Mica stated.

I guess Dan Mica equates going from a business loan cap of 12.25 percent of assets to 25 percent of assets as crawling.

I beg to differ. Such an expansion in business lending capacity is a giant leap.