By unanimous consent, the Senate last night approved a measure giving credit unions and other financial institutions more flexibility on providing notification to consumers about non-credit card accounts.
At issue was a provision of the Credit Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, which took effect on Aug. 21, that required statements on open-end accounts be delivered 21 days before they are due. Some credit unions have said they are facing logistical and other obstacles that are making compliance difficult.
CUNA and NAFCU have been pushing hard to get the law changed, which NCUA endorsed. They tried without success to get the Federal Reserve to do it, but the Fed said the change had to be done legislatively.
The trades said that to comply with the law as it was written required credit unions to move all due dates on loans to later in the month because of the 21-day notice or send out separate periodic statements for every credit card account or line of credit. Those options require costly adjustments, especially because credit unions had only 90 days from the day the law took effect to comply.
The House passed the measure two weeks ago and it now goes to President Obama for his signature.
