Current Action:
CUNA wrote to Chairman Brown and Ranking Member Toomey prior to the Committee's hearing entitled, “Home = Life: The State of Housing in America.” In the letter, CUNA wrote how the housing market has been one of the few bright spots in the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic and how Congress can support credit unions’ efforts to encourage homeownership by:
- Expanding Field of Membership;
- Supporting Community Development Financial Institutions;
- Aiding Distressed Borrowers via Mortgage Forbearance; and
- Preventing Disruption to the Secondary Mortgage Market.
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CUNA wrote to NCUA in response to the SolarWinds hack that appears to be one of the most significant cyberattacks in recent history. Hackers corrupted a software update for Orion, an IT monitoring platform, to infiltrate nearly every sector of the economy, including credit unions and other financial institutions.
Annual Advocacy Priorities
The ongoing foundation for CUNA's credit union advocacy efforts focuses on the areas below, which represent the input and guidance shared from credit unions across the country.
Consumer Protection - Credit unions are the original consumer protectors in the financial services sector; commonsense consumer protection regulation recognizes that our structure and mission makes us different.
Examination & Supervision - Credit unions support a regulatory scheme that minimizes the adverse business impact of regulations on credit union operations while ensuring that credit unions operate safely and soundly while providing cooperative financial products and services.
Charter Enhancement - Improving both the Federal Credit Union Act and state credit charters is at the top of the agendas of CUNA and the state credit union leagues. We are seeking to reduce the regulatory burdens of credit unions and empower credit unions with increased authorities and greater flexibility to serve their members.
Tax Issues - Credit unions are democratically owned and controlled not-for-profit cooperative financial institutions that take pride in their “People Helping People” philosophy. Credit unions are exempt from federal income tax because of their structure as not-for-profit financial cooperatives and their mission to promote thrift and provide access to credit for provident purposes.
Mortgage Lending & Housing - Credit union mortgage lending is a vital path to homeownership for millions of American families, and credit unions need commonsense regulation of consumer-friendly credit union mortgage products and fair and equitable access to a robust secondary market to fulfill their role in our nation's housing market.