Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, announced the reintroduction of two pieces of legislation. The first bill H.R. 10511, the Expanding Financial Access for Underserved Communities Act is aimed at helping provide financial access to consumers that reside in banking deserts, and the second H.R. 10510, the Central Liquidity Facility Enhancement Act would help ensure small credit unions have access to emergency liquidity whenever they need it so they can continue serving their customers in good times and bad.

• H.R. 10511, the “Expanding Financial Access for Underserved Communities Act” would allow credit unions to expand their field of membership to serve so-called “banking deserts,” where many banks have closed branches, limiting access to financial products and services to millions of consumers. This bill has been updated to include enhanced oversight of larger credit unions seeking to serve a banking desert to ensure they are complying with fair lending and other consumer financial protection laws, and they are engaging regularly with residents in the community to ensure they are meeting their needs.
  
  
• H.R. 10510, the “Central Liquidity Facility Enhancement Act” would make permanent reforms to the National Credit Union Administration’s (NCUA) Central Liquidity Facility (CLF) that Congress temporarily authorized in the CARES Act during the pandemic to allow small credit unions to have easier access to emergency liquidity through the CLF in a crisis. Those authorities expired in 2021, and Republican and Democratic NCUA Board members have previously called on Congress to make those reforms permanent to help ensure continued liquidity of the credit union system beyond the pandemic.
  

Similar pieces of legislation was passed by the House of Representatives in the 117th Congress, with a version of the Expanding Financial Access for Underserved Communities Act passing as part of the Congresswoman’s landmark racial economic justice bill, and a version of the Central Liquidity Facility Enhancement Act was a part of an amendment she sponsored that was included in the House-passed version of the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

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