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Due to the ongoing pandemic, the credit union industry has seen unprecedented challenges this year. Despite the uncertainty surrounding economic recovery, NAFCU and its award winning staff have worked tirelessly to provide the industry with the best advocacy, compliance, and education tools. NAFCU has achieved some great wins in 2021.

Here are a few key NAFCU and industry highlights to mark this year:

Advocacy

As lawmakers worked on coronavirus relief legislation, NAFCU fought hard to keep credit union priorities top of mind, ensuring the paycheck protection program (PPP) included credit unions as lenders and securing set-aside funding to meet credit union members' small business loan needs, while also simplifying the forgiveness process.

The NAFCU team also led legislative efforts related to the Credit Union tax exempt status, as well as modernizing Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/anti-money laundering (AML) statutes.

On the advocacy front, NAFCU worked with stakeholders on several issues, including:

• Greater loss mitigation flexibility as the NCUA finalized a rule permitting the capitalization of interest on loan modifications for borrowers;
• Troubled debt restructuring flexibility secured via legislative provisions;
• FHFA policy reform eliminating the adverse market fee on mortgage refinance loans sold to the GSEs;
• Bank chartering for non-bank fintechs opposed via testimony before Congress; and
• Fighting for relief from outdated governance requirements and arbitrary lending restrictions, and more.

Additionally, NAFCU maintained partnerships with the SBA and the United States Export-Import Bank to promote small business lending.

Compliance and Education

NAFCU's compliance team continued to provide credit unions with award-winning compliance assistance, answering nearly 7,000 member questions via the association's direct compliance assistance program. In addition, the team published more than 160 blog posts, articles, charts, guides, and tools in efforts to assist credit unions in overcoming challenges.

In efforts to keep the credit union community connected while social distancing practices remained a part of day-to-day life, NAFCU continued to expand its member-only networks designed to connect credit union professionals to their peers to share knowledge and solve challenges.

Despite the uncertain environment with the pandemic, NAFCU managed to offer 13 virtual and hybrid conferences and events. In addition, NAFCU’s education team’s Online Training Center served over 5,400 credit union industry professionals and streamed over 18,000 hours of content.

Growth

According to the most recent NCUA call report data, the credit union industry now serves more than 127.2 million Americans – adding 4.9 million members over the year – with new members joining each day. As the industry grew, so did NAFCU: The association now represents 56 percent of the industry's assets.

See more of NAFCU's 2021 accomplishments.

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