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NAFCU's Carrie Hunt strongly urged House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, in a letter last week to keep repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act's Durbin amendment as part of his revised "Financial CHOICE Act," expected to be rolled out soon.

Last year, Hensarling's "CHOICE Act" (H.R. 5983), was passed by the committee on a vote of 30-26, but it received no further action in the House. NAFCU praised many of the bill's initiatives for credit union regulatory relief and strongly supported a provision that would have repealed the Durbin amendment.

"The Federal Reserve has found that the Durbin amendment has been nearly a $40 billion windfall for merchants," wrote Hunt, NAFCU's executive vice president of government affairs and general counsel. She explained that despite the amendment's attempt to exempt smaller institutions, credit unions with assets of less than $10 billion have seen a drop in the average interchange fee. "Quite simply, the Durbin amendment is not doing what proponents said it would," she added. "It is time for its repeal."

Hunt explained the negative impact the growing compliance burden is having on credit unions. "Since the second quarter of 2010, we have lost 1,500 federally-insured credit unions – over 20% of the industry," she wrote. "There is an urgent need for Congress to enact meaningful regulatory relief."

In light of this need, Hunt also expressed support for improvements and reforms to the CFPB in the "Financial CHOICE Act," such as changing the bureau's makeup to a five-person board and moving the CFPB under congressional oversight via the appropriations process.

Hunt also pushed for the inclusion of several bills in the "Financial CHOICE Act" language, including:

• H.R. 4038, the "Community Financial Institution Exemption Act," from the 114th Congress, which would provide greater exemptions for community financial institutions from CFPB rulemakings.
• H.R. 5541, the "Financial Services for the Underserved Act," from the 114th Congress, which would clarify the ability of all credit unions to add underserved areas to their fields of membership.
• H.R. 389, the "Credit Union Residential Loan Parity Act," which would remove loans to purchase non-owner-occupied, one- to four-unit dwellings from the calculation of credit unions' MBL cap.