Last week, America’s Credit Unions announced its 2026 advocacy priorities, which will focus on three key areas: advancing, empowering, and protecting. Following a year of threats to the industry from mergers, the CFPB, and banks challenging credit unions’ tax exemption, these priorities address all of these concerns.
They are as follows:
Advance
- Expand access to credit unions
- Modernize the credit union charter
- Establish a federal data protection standard
Empower
- Enhance fraud prevention
- Reform CFPB structure and rulemaking
- Expand innovation opportunities
Protect
- Protect interchange
- Support a strong, independent credit union regulatory regime
- Reinforce the credit union tax status
Given the serious threat to both credit unions’ tax exemption status and interchange this last year, it comes as no surprise that protecting both remains one of the largest priorities for the upcoming year. Additionally, in the wake of numerous credit union mergers, modernizing the credit union charter to open the door for new credit unions and expanding access to credit unions is vital to keeping industry numbers up.
“Last year proved the strength of the credit union family when we come together,” said the agency’s new CEO, Scott Simpson. “Faced with the deepest threat to the industry in over a decade, through clear objectives and a unified voice, we were able to unite and protect the credit union tax status, in addition to achieving significant wins for the CDFI Fund, regulatory relief at the NCUA and CFPB, and more.
“We showed lawmakers that credit unions are essential to our nation’s ability to thrive,” Simpson continued. “In partnership with leagues and credit unions, we are committed to working cooperatively and collaboratively, from the federal level to state legislatures, to advance, empower, and protect credit unions and the more than 144 million Americans who choose credit unions as their trusted financial institution.”
In a follow-up, Simpson has shared his thoughts on the aforementioned priorities in a recently published op-ed.
“Our 2026 advocacy agenda focuses on three goals: advancing, empowering, and protecting the future of the credit union movement so more Americans can build financial security,” he wrote. “Achieving this will require unity. We must continue to advocate with a unified voice to ensure policymakers understand just how essential the cooperative finance model is to people and communities nationwide.”
You can read the full list of priorities on America’s Credit Unions website, and you can find the full op-ed here.
