Newsroom

November 18, 2015

NAFCU pushes privacy notice, portfolio lending QM relief

In a push for regulatory relief action for credit unions, NAFCU yesterday urged House leaders to support a bill providing relief from certain qualified mortgage requirements and asked conferees for the multi-year transportation funding bill to retain the privacy notice relief amendment that is part of H.R. 22.

The House today is expected to vote on H.R. 1210, the "Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act," which would provide a safe harbor from certain qualified mortgage requirements for residential mortgage loans held on a mortgage originator's portfolio. The NAFCU-backed measure was approved by the House Financial Services Committee in July.

NAFCU Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler, in a letter yesterday to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., (copied to the entire House), urged support for the bill, writing that "holding a loan in portfolio is the ultimate form of risk retention and deserves QM recognition."

Thaler yesterday also urged leaders for the conference committee tasked with reconciling differences between the House- and Senate-passed versions of the multi-year transportation funding bill to retain the amendment from House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, on privacy notice relief.

Hensarling's amendment includes the text of H.R. 601, the "Eliminate Privacy Notice Confusion Act," which addresses a part of NAFCU's five-point plan for regulatory relief. It would replace the statutory annual notice requirement with a requirement that consumers receive privacy notices after opening new accounts and when their providers' privacy policies change. H.R. 601 passed the House earlier this year. A companion measure, S. 423, the "Privacy Notice Modernization Act of 2015," has the bipartisan support of 51 cosponsors.

Committee leaders are Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., Ranking Member Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., and Ranking Member Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. Reports yesterday also indicated that Hensarling, and possibly others, would be named as House conferees for the financial services provisions in the bill.