Credit Union Bill Memo

Great news! Please see the attached that I received from Cam Fine, President of ICBA. Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala), Chairman of the House Financial Services Financial Institutions Subcommittee and a terrific friend of community banks, has announced that CURIA is dead for the year. I have also included the link to the article referenced in Cam’s email that appeared in the Credit Union Journal -- http://www.cujournal.com/#2.

You’ll recall that the credit union industry has been promoting CURIA vigorously as a “regulatory relief” bill. One of the most troubling provisions of CURIA would allow the credit unions to greatly expand their commercial lending. PACB has been strenuously opposing CURIA for the last three years.

While this is a tremendous victory for community banks, we have much more work to do on the credit union issue. Both ACB and ICBA, with PACB’s support, are promoting legislative tools, to rein in credit unions and help level the playing field. As I reported to the membership earlier this week, these measures include H.R. 3206, charter choice for credit unions that want to convert to mutual savings institutions, and H.R. 2061, the Communities First Act.

Several community bankers and Dave Transue and I will be traveling to Washington D.C. soon as part of ICBA’s Spring Meeting. We will be promoting these worthwhile tools in our arsenal against the credit unions. We also plan on seeing Congressman Bachus at a private reception and will extend PACB’s thanks to him for his steadfast support.