The morning after: What election night means for credit unions

The next time someone tells you the more things change, the more they stay the same, remind them about the election of 2016. No one, including Donald Trump, knows precisely what all this means for credit unions, but there are some very intriguing possibilities.

1. Mandate relief is a real possibility. One of the most conservative Congresses in history will now have a Republican president. The Democrats only picked up one Senate seat and although the House majority was trimmed, the flame thrower faction will see last night’s results, with some justification, as vindication of their scorched earth approach to governing.  Without the threat of a veto, legislation to scale back the CFPB and provide mandate relief to smaller financial institutions may grow legs.
2. CFPB will be in the cross hairs. When the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the CFPB’s director was an at-will servant of the President, credit unions were disappointed that the Court didn’t go further in invalidating the whole enterprise. Now that case has some real teeth. With anti-regulation Trump coming to town, the Bureau is effectively in limbo.

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