CUNA Claims MBL Victory, Then Seeks More Holes in MBL Cap

After declaring victory with respect to the member business loan (MBL) fight, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) appears to have reversed course.

CUNA is claiming that the enactment of S. 2155, Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, and the National Credit Union Administration's amended member business loan rule have given credit unions ample opportunity to make business loans. In fact, CUNA stated that these two events gave credit unions greater business lending authority than they would have received by just raising the MBL cap from 12.25 percent of assets to 27.5 percent of assets.

Here is what CUNA wrote on January 6, 2019:

"Importantly, this legislation ... carried a major charter enhancement provision, exempting one- to four-family non-owner occupied loans from the member business lending cap. Taken together with our success on the NCUA’s MBL rule, which exempts from the cap loan participations purchased from other credit unions, we can officially declare final victory on the system’s 20-year battle to restore credit union business authority. Indeed, these two changes will provide more cap space than we had been seeking in the old Royce-Udall legislation that aimed to raise the cap to 27.5%."

Now, CUNA is supporting a bill that would exclude business loans to veterans from the aggregate MBL cap.

If that was victory, what's next on CUNA's wish list?