CUNA letter to Trump transition team
WASHINGTON, DC (November 9, 2016) — The Honorable Chris Christie Chairman
Transition Committee
Donald J. Trump for President New York, NY
VIA EMAIL
Dear Governor Christie:
On behalf of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), I am writing to express our interest in working with you and members of President-elect Trump’s transition effort as you build your economic team. CUNA represents America’s credit unions and their more than 100 million members.
As we witnessed last night, democracy is the cornerstone of our nation. Credit unions are economic democracy in action. Credit unions are not-for-profit financial cooperatives with a statutory mission to promote thrift and provide access to credit for provident purposes. Unlike most other financial institutions, credit unions do not issue stock or pay dividends to outside stockholders. Instead, earnings are returned to our members in the form of lower loan rates, higher interest on deposits, and lower fees. Each credit union member has equal ownership and one vote — regardless of how much money a member has on deposit. At a credit union, every customer is both a member and an owner. Simply put: credit unions exist to serve their members.
At the federal level, credit unions are regulated, supervised and insured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). NCUA is governed by a three-person board, which currently has one vacancy and may have two by the time of the president-elect’s inauguration. In August 2017, NCUA Chairman Rick Metsger’s term will expire. I encourage the Trump-Pence transition team to focus on these vacancies in preparation for the president-elect to nominate NCUA Board candidates as soon as possible.
It is critical that the president-elect’s nominees to the NCUA Board not only understand how credit unions operate, but also support the credit union difference and the important role credit unions play in the lives of their members. Further, nominees to the NCUA Board should have the vision to balance the importance of managing a safe and sound system of cooperative credit with the need to ensure that regulatory burden does not interfere with credit unions’ ability to innovate and to serve their members efficiently and effectively.
Under the leadership of Chairman Metsger, the NCUA Board has made great strides to modernize its policies to adapt to a changing environment. They have modernized the field of membership and member business lending regulation, published the overhead transfer rate methodology for the first time, invited public feedback on the agency budget, and taken steps to modernize the supervisory process and reduce examination frequency for healthy credit unions.
We applaud these efforts but feel more work needs to be done. We are hopeful that Trump administration nominees will encourage NCUA to modernize the OTR methodology, push forward with more supervisory modernizations, including an independent examination appeals process, and find operational efficiencies that meaningfully reduce the size of the agency’s budget. We are confident that with high-caliber nominees that understand credit unions and the role they play in the lives of their members, NCUA will continue to head in the right direction.
As you proceed to the next stages of the transition, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues and other credit union priorities with you and the president-elect’s staff.
On behalf of America’s Credit Unions, thank you for considering our views. We look forward to working with you and others in the future.
Sincerely,
Jim Nussle
President & CEO
About CUNA
Credit Union National Association (CUNA) is the only national association that advocates on behalf of all of America’s credit unions, which are owned by 135 million consumer members. CUNA, along with its network of affiliated state credit union leagues, delivers unwavering advocacy, continuous professional growth and operational confidence to protect the best interests of all credit unions. For more information about CUNA, visit cuna.org. To find your nearest credit union, visit YourMoneyFurther.com.
