WASHINGTON – Because credit unions "in no way" caused the current financial crisis, there is no reason to impose further restraints on them, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank told CUNA's Governmental Affairs Conference today.
He promised to work to be certain that there is no change in credit unions' tax-exempt status and credit unions will have a "very open forum to make arguments" about expanding some of the things they can do
He expressed support for the provisions of a measure that passed the House last year-that grandfathers in existing designations of underserved areas and allows federal credit unions to apply to serve underserved areas outside their field of service. Loans in those communities and to religious non-profit institutions would not count against their member business loan cap. The Senate took no action on the measure.
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He also advocated tightening lending rules so that all lenders would have to follow the same procedures when making loans as credit unions did.
"If only credit unions had made loans, there would have been no subprime loans," he said.
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