Utah’s Credit Unions Meet with Federal Delegation

Last week Utah’s credit unions met with all six members of Utah’s federal delegation during America’s Credit Union’s annual Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC).

About 35 professionals from 10 credit unions and the Association met with Congressmembers in rooms in the Capitol and Capitol Visitor’s Center. The location made it possible to meet with all members of the federal delegation without a mob of credit union professionals traipsing back-and-forth across capitol hill multiple times.

The tenor of the meetings was friendly and conversational, and underscored the solid relationships that Utah’s credit unions have with members of Congress.

Credit unions first met with Sen. Lee, then Rep. Moore, Rep. Maloy, Sen. Romney, Rep. Curtis, and Rep. Owens. They had from 10 to 30 minutes with each member to discuss credit union issues.

Topics discussed included:

• How interchange regulations and laws break a system that works—specifically, Reg II, which would affect debit interchange, and the Credit Card Competition Act, which would regulate credit interchange.
• The politicization by regulators (the CFPB and NCUA) of legitimate fees that credit unions use to cover the cost of offering services to members.
• Board modernization—bills that would reduce the number of times federal credit unions would be required to meet each year.
• Credit union exemption from income taxes. The Association left each member a copy of the recent study about interchange, as well as a piece of collateral built specifically for the meetings.

Throughout each year, Association staff spends time building relationships with congressional staffers and elected representatives. Visits during GAC are just a small part of the overall effort to ensure that members of the Federal delegation understand credit union issues.