On April 26th, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the committee chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling’ s (R-TX) Dodd-Frank alternative bill. The bill, the Financial CHOICE Act, contains a number of regulatory relief provisions positive for credit unions. These include:
- Changes to the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and how it operates,
- Improvements to mortgage lending laws,
- Examination fairness with NCUA,
- Safe harbor for reporting elder financial abuse, and what is deemed highly controversial…
- A repeal of the “Durbin Amendment” on interchange…which is not considered by several political insiders to stay in the bill moving forward. To urge your US Representative to keep the “Durbin Amendment” repeal in the legislation, you can do so here.
Next steps for the bill: The committee is expected to be in a continuation hearing on the bill as of press time, and then hold another meeting on May 2nd to address amendments, debate provisions, and make changes to move it forward (which is called a mark-up). But whatever changes are made will be aimed at purely securing passage of the bill through the committee and then through the House in some form. Then, the bill would go to the Senate where (hopefully) several of the provisions will be retained and pass. So, with that said there is much work to be done, and the bill will change throughout the process … with the work of the most consequence to get to a final form in the Senate. In the meantime, Rep. Hensarling has been in regular contact with CUNA, dialogue aimed at ensuring that the efforts to bring meaningful regulatory relief for credit unions remain on track.
