On Wednesday, the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services will hold a hearing focused on “Oversight of Prudential Regulators: Ensuring the Safety, Soundness, Diversity, and Accountability of Depository Institutions.” Among other financial services regulators, the National Credit Union Administration Chairman will be testifying.   Traditionally these hearings focus on the important role of taxpaying banks, but we thought the Committee […]

Large credit unions remind one of the classic video game Pac-Man, moving quickly and eating up as many banks as possible as their regulator remains as ethereal as the bad ghosts chasing dear old Pac. Unfortunately, the only people with a stack of quarters to keep the game going are American taxpayers as more and […]

Struggling with declining revenues due to the pandemic, Washington State University Athletics agreed to sell the naming rights of Martin Stadium to GESA Credit Union in a 10-year, $11 million deal earlier this month. The deal comes after months of talks and speculation and will mark one of the more lucrative stadium contracts in college […]

NCUA’s rush to expand the powers of CUSOs—the organizations that provide financial and operational services for credit unions—has many small credit unions wondering what the hurry is all about. The industry’s little guys risk losing business should CUSOs be allowed even more unregulated, untaxed, and unfettered access to consumers than they already have. As the […]

During the 2021 annual Credit Union National Association’s Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC), NCUA Chairman Todd Harper spoke to (virtual) attendees and warned that the NCUA’s own review of the industry last year found credit unions lacking when it comes to consumer financial protections. In his remarks, Harper noted (emphasis added): “In 2020, NCUA examiners completed […]

The National Taxpayers Union – in a new letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden and Ranking Member Mike Crapo outlining the organization’s 2021 tax policy priorities – laid out yet another compelling argument for why lawmakers need to take a hard look at how large credit unions continue to game the nation’s tax […]

Credit unions talk a good game when it comes to helping people in times of need. Unfortunately, the economic calamity that has resulted from the pandemic doesn’t seem to meet their stress test for neediness. Less than 2.5 percent of the $100 billion lent to small businesses since the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) relaunched in […]

President Biden’s decision this week to name Todd Harper as chairman of the National Credit Union Administration puts in place a highly qualified, deeply experienced regulator at the helm of the industry’s supervisor and federal insurer. As chairman, Harper has pledged to “focus on four policy priorities: capital and liquidity, consumer financial protection, cybersecurity, and […]

A move by the National Credit Union Administration to allow large credit unions to issue subordinated debt for regulatory capital purposes from outside for-profit investors—such as corporate debt markets—while retaining their tax exemption, undermines the statutory principle that credit unions should serve consumers of small means, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols wrote in an […]

With apologies to Dickens, 2020 has been for credit unions both “the best of times and the worst of times,” with the largest credit unions – those with over $1 billion in assets – outgrowing, out-lending, and, in many cases, out-surviving their smaller counterparts. According to the National Credit Union Administration’s latest Quarterly Credit Union […]