NCUA’s Community Development Revolving Loan Fund (CDRLF) is a critically important program and should be fully funded at $2 million in fiscal year 2020, CUNA wrote to House and Senate appropriators Tuesday. The House-passed Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2020 provides $2 million for the CDRLF, but the FSGG bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee in September does not.

“The CDRLF assists credit unions serving low-income communities to: 1) provide financial services to their communities; 2) stimulate economic activities in their communities, resulting in increased income and employment; and 3) operate more efficiently,” the letter reads. “No Congressionally-appropriated funds are used to fund the CDRLF’s administrative or overhead costs. These costs are paid by credit unions insured by the NCUA. Therefore, every dollar appropriated by Congress to the CDRLF is passed on directly to underserved communities and the credit unions that serve them.”

CUNA also noted that “the CDRLF usually receives requests that greatly exceed available funds and CUNA is concerned that an elimination of this fund will result in fewer low-income credit unions having access to needed capital to provide critical services to low income credit union members.”

The letter includes example of what credit unions have used CDRLF funds for, including:

• Fighting fraud and embed EMV chips in credit and debit cards;
• Opening new branches in underserved areas;
• Offering services like free income tax preparation and financial literacy classes; and
• Allowing smaller credit unions to offer new products and services.