OR CU Priority Bills Introduced in the House this Week

Posted by Ben Shuey on February 4, 2021

On Tuesday, HB3079 and HB3080 were introduced in the Oregon House of Representatives.  After several months of work by the State Issues Working Group, both bills were drafted by legislative counsel and introduced by the House Business and Labor Committee

HB3079 makes four changes to the Oregon Credit Union Act:

1. Updates the trigger date in our federal parity provision in statute;
2. Allows for “Emergency Mergers” to occur without consideration for Field of Membership;
3. Removes requirement that credit unions can only invest CUSO’s with majority ownership by a credit union;
4. Updates Field of Membership language in statute by removing the word “local” to allow for “a geographic field of membership area to consist of one or more well defined communities, neighborhoods or rural districts.

HB3080 revises our bill from the 2019 Legislative Session to allow financial institutions to scan the bar code on the Oregon Driver’s License to populate a loan or membership document.

NWCUA and credit union advocates are currently meeting with members of the House Business and Labor Committee and we hope to have it scheduled in the next few weeks.

Also on Tuesday, Ron Neumann, President/CEO of Oregon Community Credit Union and Pam Leavitt testified before the House Economic Recovery and Prosperity Committee.  We were asked to talk about the work of credit unions to summer consumers and small business during this past year.  It was a great opportunity to lay out all the work of Oregon credit unions to support their members through these challenged times.  Here is a portion of our written testimony:  “Credit unions were founded during the Great Depression to serve those who were being overlooked by the traditional banking system. In full alignment with their “People Helping People” mission, credit unions have been providing special assistance to members since the very onset of  the COVID-19 crisis. Such services included options for members to skip loan payments, mortgage forbearances, loan modifications, credit card payment deferrals, zero interest loans, other accommodations on existing loans, as well as new emergency loans. In fact, the NWCUA’s Community Impact Survey showed that between early March and the end of June, Oregon credit unions had already waived more than $4.4 million in fees, to help their members through the pandemic.”

Posted in Advocacy on the Move, Oregon Advocacy.