March 26, 2013
The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Re: Support Regulatory Relief for our Nation’s Credit Unions
Dear Leader Reid and Leader McConnell:
On behalf of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU), the only trade association exclusively representing the interests of our nation’s federal credit unions, I write today to reiterate NAFCU’s call for the broad based regulatory relief that will enable credit unions to continue to serve their 95 million member-owners moving forward.
As you know, during consideration of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2014 (S.Con.Res. 8), the Senate adopted by unanimous consent an amendment (S.Amdt. 389) put forward by Senator Boozman that seeks to address the disproportionate regulatory burden community banks face. NAFCU and its member credit unions appreciate the Senate’s timely focus on regulatory relief for community based financial institutions, but urge the Senate to also recognize the steep regulatory burden credit unions face and include regulatory relief for credit unions in these efforts.
All community based financial services institutions, including credit unions, are struggling under an ever-increasing regulatory burden. The impact of this growing compliance burden is evident as the number of credit unions continues to decline, dropping by more than 700 institutions since 2009. Credit unions didn’t cause the financial crisis and shouldn’t be caught in the crosshairs of regulations aimed at those entities that did. Unfortunately, that has not been the case thus far. Accordingly, finding ways to cut-down on burdensome and unnecessary regulatory compliance costs is a chief priority of our members. We hope it will also be a priority of the Senate.
Regulatory relief is critical to the survival of credit unions and, as outlined in the attached letter NAFCU sent to the Senate Banking Committee on February 12th, there are several areas where Congress can act to reduce the overwhelming burden credit unions face. We look forward to working with you and your staff to ensure that the views of credit unions are conveyed and that the proposals outlined in the attached letter are given due consideration during the 113th Congress.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. If you have any questions or would like further information about any of these issues, please do not hesitate to contact me or NAFCU’s Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler by telephone at (703) 842-2204 or by e-mail at bthaler@nafcu.org.
Sincerely,
Fred R. Becker, Jr.
President and CEO
cc: Members of the United States Senate