The American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association on May 3 wrote to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director expressing strong opposition to a recent request for the bureau to cede its supervisory authority for the nation’s largest credit unions to the National Credit Union Association (NCUA).
The letter was in response to a years-long campaign waged by credit unions, their trade associations, and, remarkably, their federal prudential regulator, seeking special treatment from the CFPB for the credit union industry.
The associations pointed out that the Dodd-Frank Act clearly communicates Congress’ intention that the credit unions be held to the same supervisory standards as other large depository institutions. Granting the request for special treatment to credit unions with at least $10 billion in assets would be in direct conflict with congressional intent and would contribute to an unlevel regulatory playing field between banks and credit unions, they said.
“While we believe that the bureau should take every opportunity to reduce the regulatory burden for all financial institutions and eliminate duplicative supervision, we strongly disagree with the premise that the consumer financial services offered by credit unions inherently differ from those offered by other financial institutions competing in the marketplace,” the groups wrote. “Policymakers have reason to seriously question the appropriateness of the special treatment being sought by credit unions and their federal prudential regulatory authority, the National Credit Union Administration.”
Read the letter.
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Even as a long-time credit union person, this effort should have stopped before it was started. Better or worse, the law is what the law is. Credit unions over $10 billion have CFPB as its primary regulator. We need to just deal with that...or get the law changed.
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