WASHINGTON–The credit union-opposed Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) was not included as part of the 21st Century Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act when the Senate voted 89-10 vote late last week to pass the bill. It had at one point been proposed as an amendement.
As the CU Daily reported earlier and as America’s Credit Unions also noted, the House passed its own version of a housing bill in February, but the new language in the Senate requires the House to clear the Senate-passed version or request a conference on the two bills in order to resolve differences and advance a housing package to the president’s desk.
The CCCA, which is being pushed by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), would affect interchange rates on the largest of financial institutions, with the credit union trade groups arguing that ultimately it would affect all card issuers. Marshall and other proponents have been seeking a piece of legislation to which they can attach the interchange legislation.
The ROAD to Housing Act revises federal housing programs by expanding available financing for affordable housing and providing grants for planning and community development. As the CU Daily has also reported, the most significant addition to the Senate version is a ban on “large institutional investors” that own more than 350 single-family homes in aggregate from purchasing additional single-family homes.
