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The House and Senate are both in recess this week, providing credit unions an opportune time to meet with their lawmakers while they're in their home districts and states. NAFCU's award-winning advocacy team will remain active on Capitol Hill, meeting with congressional staff on key industry issues.

There are a number of credit union-related issues being considered in Washington currently, including:

• Underserved communities: Last week, Sen. Warren, D-Mass., released a modified version of her comprehensive housing reform bill, the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act of 2019. NAFCU called the bill a "mixed bag for credit unions" as the updated legislation would not subject credit unions to Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations, but would introduce new regulatory burdens for some community chartered credit unions and credit unions that seek to add underserved areas. Members can access NAFCU's full analysis here.
• Fintech: NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger last week published an op-ed in American Banker calling on Congress to pass legislation to ensure fintech firms are subject to the same data security and consumer protection standards as credit unions.
• Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/anti-money laundering (AML) reforms: NAFCU continues to advocate for BSA/AML reforms as lawmakers acknowledge the high compliance burden of these requirements on financial institutions. The association is supportive of raising certain thresholds for report filings, and also joined with other trade groups last week to urge Congress to modernize the BSA framework.
• Loan maturity limits: A NAFCU-sought bill was introduced last week that would give the NCUA greater flexibility in setting loan maturity limits under the Federal Credit Union Act. Expanding maturity limits to give credit unions additional tools to grow is one of NAFCU's 2019 priorities.
• National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) reforms: The House Financial Services Committee recently met to discuss reauthorization of the program, and Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., has released draft legislation that would reauthorize it for five years and make a number of NAFCU-sought reforms. NAFCU has cautioned against legislation that would increase annual premium rates too quickly.

NAFCU will update member credit unions on these issues and more during its Q1 Member Call happening April 3; registration for the call is now open. Credit unions can find contact information for their respective lawmakers through NAFCU's Grassroots Action Center to further discuss these issues.

NAFCU's education and compliance teams will also be busy this week as the association's 2019 conference season gets underway. Spring Regulatory Compliance School kicks off today (read more here), and Strategic Growth Conference starts tomorrow.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) – the Fed's monetary policy-setting arm – begins its two-day meeting tomorrow. The committee last raised the federal funds target rate in December – its fourth of 2018 – but a rate hike in 2019 is looking less likely.