WASHINGTON – CUNA President/CEO Dan Mica penned a letter to the editor, "Bank Regulators Could Be Called Cheerleaders Too" to the American Banker, taking issue with comments by Donald Ogilvie, executive vice president of the American Bankers Association that Mica called "both disturbing and misleading."
In Mica's letter to the editor that ran in the December 28th edition of American Banker, he said Ogilvie's statements "overlook the fact that the National Credit Union Administration's proposed Community Action Plan was not based on statute and was patently unnecessary."
Mica further addressed Ogilvie's implication that "since no regulation exists requiring credit unions to lend in their communities, they do not do so." Mica stated that the exact opposite is true.
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"Unlike banks, credit unions by law can lend only to their members, which, by practice, include people of modest means," Mica wrote. He added that credit unions' commitment to serving these consumers "is explicitly reiterated" in the Renaissance Commission report.
Mica also responded to Ogilvie's description of the credit union regulator as being a "chief cheerleader."
Citing the recent appointments of Donald Powell as the FDIC's chairman, Mark Olson to the Federal Reserve Board, and James Gilleran as the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision "not only because they are competent individuals, but also because they are former bankers." Mica said he couldn't "help but wonder if the future actions of these regulators, and the regulatory largesse the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has exercised this year when implementing banking regulations, would qualify them as "cheerleaders" for the banking industry.
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