VT Bankers Urge Congressional Review of NCUA, CU Mission Posted by AVCU on 12:49 PM

On Wednesday of this week, the Vermont Bankers Association joined 50 other state-level bank trade associations in a joint letter to the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee.  They called for a review of the credit union industry to determine whether it is living up to its statutory mission of serving people of “small means.” The joint letter from bankers in all fifty states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, also called for a thorough examination of the NCUA and its oversight of the credit union industry.

Citing research from an American Bankers Association commissioned study released in June, the state associations raised concerns that credit unions are actually contributing to greater economic inequality and endangering taxpayers by:

• increasingly providing services to high-income consumers rather than low to moderate income consumers
• making high risk loans
• buying up tax-paying banks, and
• that the NCUA has enabled credit unions to creep far beyond their statutory authority while allowing regulatory capital requirements and other safety and soundness rules to become substandard.

Not surprisingly, the letter fails to disclose that the research cited was commissioned by the American Bankers Association which throws into question its objectivity.

• Read the Joint State Bank Association letter. 
• Read the latest ABA study on credit unions.