Congress must tell regulators to stop piling regulations on top of the already crushing burden credit unions shoulder, and to stop treating the financial cooperatives as if they created the financial crisis or contributed to it. That will be CUNA’s message in testimony today before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee at a hearing titled “Preserving Consumer Choice and Financial Independence.”

CUNA witness Patrick Miller, president/CEO, CBC FCU, Oxnard, Calif., will underscore that credit union compliance with such a burden of rules has costs of money and time that would be far better spent serving members.

Every additional dollar spent on compliance, he will remind the financial services panel, is a dollar that cannot be made into a loan for a member.

CUNA’s testimony will also highlight specific areas Congress can address now, including:

• Making improvements to the Federal Credit Union Act in areas such as requiring National Credit Union Administration public budget hearings, restore credit unions’ member business lending authority and improve credit union capital requirements;

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