Ahead of a markup tomorrow in the House Financial Services Committee, ABA and 51 state bankers associations urged lawmakers to oppose a bill, H.R. 7003, that would allow credit unions to expand their membership and business lending capacity—the credit union industry’s latest attempt at charter enhancement.
“The legislation also creates a major new loophole in the credit union business lending cap, long one of the most controversial issues in financial services,” the associations said. “Bankers remain staunchly opposed to efforts to gut this limitation, which serves an important public policy objective—focusing this tax-exempt industry on its specified mission of meeting the credit and savings needs of consumers . . . through an emphasis on consumer rather than business loans.”