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NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger wrote House and Senate leaders Wednesday to hit back against misleading attack ads on credit unions made by the American Bankers Association.

Berger cited the high fines, settlement numbers and buy-backs accrued by big banks in recent years after the banks' misconduct leading up to the financial crisis:

• Bank of America - $55.7 billion
• JPMorgan Chase - $23.8 billion
• Citigroup - $10.6 billion
• Wells Fargo - $6.5 billion

"We hope that the ABA will change their approach and they will focus instead their resources on issues that can help the entire financial services community, such as regulatory relief and creating a national data security standard," Berger said in letters to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Berger also countered ABA's claims that "credit unions have unfair advantages and should be taxed." He noted that an independent study commissioned by NAFCU showed that credit unions add $17 billion to the economy per year and that eliminating their tax exemption would result in the loss of 150,000 jobs per year.

The NAFCU president also noted a Small Business Administration study that showed that banks decreased small business lending during the financial crisis while credit unions increased theirs. Finally, he pointed out: "If credit unions have such an extraordinary advantage, why aren't banks lining up to convert to credit unions?"

Preserving the credit union tax exemption continues to be NAFCU's top legislative priority.