DENVER — Not content to fight their battles in the halls of Congress, the courts and the pages of the Federal Register, banks and credit unions are also jockeying for favored positions in the platforms of the two major political parties.
"Credit unions were originally conceived of as institutions to help meet the financial needs of people of modest means, and they have been granted impressive government benefits to encourage that mission," American Bankers Association President/CEO Edward Yingling wrote in a letter to the chairmen of both parties' platform committees. "Today, too many credit unions have strayed from that focus."
But CUNA President/CEO Dan Mica and NAFCU President/CEO Fred Becker countered that credit unions were the good actors in the latest financial services crisis and should be rewarded accordingly.
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"Credit unions have emerged largely unscathed from the subprime mortgage lending crisis because, unlike many banks, credit unions practice sound lending practices and were not tempted into making risky loans with the promise of big profits in return…. Therefore, the plague of nonperforming home loans is a bank problem, not a credit union problem," Mica wrote the platform committees.
Becker wrote that passing the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act, which includes risk-based capital reform and raises the member business lending cap from 12.25% of assets to 20%, would help credit unions provide more people with much-needed access to capital.
He and Mica both urged the committees to support maintaining the tax-exempt status of credit unions and said removing the exemption would "be akin to proposing a tax increase on 90 million hard-working Americans who are member-owners of credit unions."
While the Democratic platform included a plank urging the government to do more to encourage savings, it did not take a position on the credit union-bank dispute. The GOP platform was still being drafted at press time.
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