Anna Palmer
Roll Call
3/15/2010
Update: 5 p.m.
Just hours after Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) unveiled his financial services regulatory reform bill, business groups moved to oppose specific provisions in the legislation.
The National Association of Federal Credit Unions came out strongly against a provision on the proposed consumer protection agency that would include smaller depository institutions. NAFCU’s executive vice president of government affairs, Dan Berger, said that while the group applauds Dodd for trying to protect consumers, NAFCU will lobby for a change at the markup to raise the consumer protection agency’s examination and enforcement level to exclude institutions with $50 billion or less in assets. Dodd’s proposal calls for the consumer agency to have oversight of financial institutions with more than $10 billion in assets.
“Lumping credit unions in with payday lenders and other bad actors is not the best approach, especially when the two largest credit unions serve our brave men and women in uniform,” Berger said, referencing the Navy and Pentagon federal credit unions.
The Financial Services Roundtable continued its push against separating consumer oversight from the institutions that regulate them, such as the Treasury Department.
“The Roundtable believes that consumer protection should not be separated out from the regulators which govern the products,” FSR President and CEO Steve Bartlett said in a statement.
