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Credit unions would see several measures of regulatory relief, many of them supported by NAFCU, under a financial reform package unveiled Tuesday by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

More than 200 pages long, the package contains a number of NAFCU-backed initiatives such as a requirement for public NCUA budget hearings, indexing of arbitrary asset thresholds in the Dodd-Frank Act (such as the debit interchange rule's $10 billion threshold), statutory relief from annual privacy notice requirements and granting of safe harbor qualified-mortgage (QM) status for certain loans held in portfolio.

Additionally, it would require NCUA to study the impact of RBC2 on mortgage servicing assets, require the Federal Housing Finance Agency to withdraw its proposed rule revising Federal Home Loan Bank membership requirements while GAO studies the issue, and grant credit unions parity with community banks in the definition of community financial institution under the Federal Home Loan Bank Act. The bill would also promote examination fairness by establishing an office of examination ombudsman in the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council to investigate complaints by financial institutions, including credit unions, concerning their examination process.

The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to hold a mark-up of the package, titled "The Financial Regulatory Improvement Act of 2015," on May 21.

"We thank Chairman Shelby for his leadership and commitment to regulatory relief," said NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger. "We are pleased that the discussion draft of the Financial Regulatory Improvements Act unveiled today has a number of provisions to provide regulatory relief to credit unions. We are continuing to review it and look forward to working with the chairman and committee members prior to next week's mark-up to help advance NAFCU's priorities for credit union regulatory relief."