The National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU) voiced its support this week for the Trump Administration’s plans for regulatory reform in a letter sent to the U.S. Treasury.
NAFCU called a presidential executive order published Feb. 3 in the Federal Register titled “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,” a “valuable framework for promoting growth and innovation across all sectors.”
The order directs federal agencies and departments to ensure that the net incremental cost of all new regulations falls below zero.
NAFCU’s Director of Regulatory Affairs Alexander Monterrubio said the order could lead to positive outcomes for credit unions.
Further, he said the most significant opportunities for reducing regulation and mitigating costs are contained in Treasury’s recent report, “A Financial System that Creates Economic Opportunities.”
“NAFCU believes that Treasury’s report is the first step in achieving a net reduction in regulatory costs consistent with the president’s executive order,” Monterrubio wrote in a letter to the Treasury.
This Treasury report, which cites NAFCU’s Report on Credit Unions, highlights nearly 100 legislative and regulatory reforms for the financial service industry and includes 31 provisions that would offer relief specifically to credit unions and their members.
Among those recommendations are reduced regulatory fragmentation, overlap and duplication;
flexibility for community development financial institutions and minority depository institutions;
tailored regulations and exemptions for small institutions where permitted; an annual review of the CFPB’s regulations; reform of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to facilitate coordination among member agencies (which include the NCUA and CFPB); harmonization of financial regulatory agencies’ cybersecurity standards and principles; rigorous cost-benefit analyses and use of notices of proposed rulemaking to solicit public comment; and review of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s current-expected-credit-loss standard.