MBA continues to promote fair competition among Massachusetts financial institutions and has again sponsored legislation to ensure a level-playing field as it relates to Massachusetts credit unions constant push to expand their powers through changes to state and federal regulation. In part, our bill establishes new requirements for credit union membership by‐law amendments. Specifically, the membership vote is increased from a majority to three‐quarters and at least five percent of the credit union’s total membership must participate in the vote. The bill also mandates that all state‐chartered credit unions with more than 25,000 members provide the option for members to vote by electronic means at any special or annual meeting. The bill also refocuses state‐chartered credit unions on their traditional mission by enhancing the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) statute for credit unions and explicitly tying CRA performance to expanded interstate branching powers.
MBA continues to monitor and oppose several bills that would authorize the state, along with local governments and other political subdivisions throughout the Commonwealth, to deposit public funds in tax-exempt credit unions. These bills would greatly expand the current credit union tax subsidiary by allowing public funds to flow out of tax paying banks into income tax-exempt credit unions. This would also compound into additional loss of state tax revenue to the Commonwealth’s General Fund that will negatively affect the distribution of the Commonwealth’s vital tax dollars back to municipalities in the form of local aid.