WASHINGTON (11/13/15)--Credit unions were walloped with $6.6 billion in regulatory burden impact in 2014, a new CUNA study will reveal in the coming weeks.

Addressing CUNA’s inaugural Quarterly Membership Webinar Thursday, CUNA Chief Policy Officer Bill Hampel provided a few early numbers from the study.

Hampel made it clear that credit unions suffer a one-two punch with the steep costs of regulatory burden. The CUNA survey disclosed a median compliance cost of 49 basis points of a credit union's assets. That was coupled with a median reduction in revenue opportunity of 10 basis points of assets.

The total impacts are equivalent to 20% of total credit union operating expenses and 40% of total staff expenses.

“This information is just the tip of a very large iceberg,” Hampel said.

The upcoming CUNA report will discuss various categories of costs, revenue impacts, how the burden has increased over the last five years and what credit unions would be able to do with those resources if they weren’t tied up dealing with regulations.

CUNA first announced its deep dive into compliance costs in February, during testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on the need for regulatory relief for credit unions. The survey will be the first-ever complete catalog of compliance costs caused by regulations--information even regulators do not have.

“Armed with this data, we’ll be able to conduct our advocacy efforts in a much more convincing way than anyone has been able to in the past, in order to stop the tide of new regulations and to start rolling back existing ones,” Hampel told CUNA members during the webinar.

CUNA will share the results with member credit unions in the next several weeks, and CUNA and the leagues will be delivering the information to state and federal legislatures and regulators.

For more information on CUNA’s membership webinar, see “New membership webinar highlights CUNA’s advocacy, compliance goals” in today’s News Now.

Other Resources

CUNA Regulatory Compliance School

CUNA Bank Secrecy Act Conference

CUNA Vendor Management Compliance Resources

CUNA Compliance Community