WASHINGTON–CUNA has launched a campaign aimed at what it said is the “most pressing issue” facing credit unions – regulatory burden.
The new Ease the Burden campaign features a website that will serve to activate credit union members to weigh in on how regulatory burden negatively impacts them and their not-for-profit financial cooperative, according to CUNA.
"We have two main goals for this campaign," said CUNA president/CEO Jim Nussle in a statement. "First, we want to educate credit union members on how burdensome regulation impacts them directly and activate them to contact lawmakers and regulators with a message of reducing the regulatory burden on credit unions. Second, through this member activation, we want to educate Congress—and eventually regulators—on the harm to credit union members, consumers and constituents caused by undue and misplaced regulation of credit unions and their member-owners."
In launching the campaign, CUNA said that since 2010 total regulatory costs for credit unions have increased 39% to $6.1 billion. Over that time credit unions have lost $1.1 billion in revenue due to regulatory costs.
“Out-of-control federal regulations have led to a staggering $7.2 billion total impact on credit unions,” CUNA said.
In addition to CUNA's recent regulatory burden study, CUNA pointed to a survey it conducted that asked what credit unions would do if these lost costs were returned to credit unions. The top two responses were that credit unions would provide lower rates on mortgages and higher interest rates on deposits.
"Instead of Congress and federal regulators focusing on the real problems with Wall Street and the big banks in the aftermath of the financial crisis, they created an expensive new regulatory environment that hurts credit unions on Main Street and the members who own them," said Nussle. "We need to make sure our members know how much policymakers missed the target when they tried to reform Wall Street. Their ill-conceived new regulations place a heavy burden on credit unions and, in fact, are hurting the very consumers they were designed to protect."
The new Ease the Burden campaign comes at the same time CUNA has launched a Regulatory Burden Calculator to help credit calculate their own regulatory burden costs.
The Regulatory Burden Calculator is free to CUNA’s member credit unions and allows them to replicate CUNA’s recently commissioned study that comprehensively examined the considerable financial impact
“The Regulatory Burden Calculator is a great tool that will allow credit unions to assess the impact of regulations on their own credit union,” said CUNA Chief Policy Officer Bill Hampel. “CUNA commissioned a regulatory burden study to quantify the effect that rules and regulations have had on our credit union members and we created this new tool to meet the further needs of our members. Credit unions want to better understand the impact of regulations on their credit unions – and now we’ve made the data available at their fingertips.”
CUNA commissioned financial services consulting firm Cornerstone Advisors to comprehensively examine the costs of regulatory burden for credit unions throughout the nation for 2014. CUNA further mined the study to break out the costs of regulations by state, and, now, by credit union.