Last Friday, the White House issued the “Promoting Access to Mortgage Credit” Executive Order, which calls for regulatory relief in regard to mortgage lending, which the administration argues has become too expensive and burdensome given the amount of required compliance.

“The regulatory and rule changes have undermined community banks’ businesses, concentrated credit and liquidity risk outside the banking system, and resulted in reduced access to credit for some creditworthy borrowers, including rural households and low- and moderate-income households,” the Order states.

To that end, the Executive Order calls on the CFPB to tailor requirements to the size of the institution, meaning rules would not be applied to big banks and community financial institutions equally, without regard for their asset size and purpose. This has long been a complaint of the credit union industry and its trade organizations, who argued that one-size-fits-all regulations were unfairly burdensome on smaller financial institutions such as credit unions, and did not take their not-for-profit status and people-first mission into consideration.

The EO also requires the CFPB to raise the asset threshold exception for smaller banks, regarding the Modernization of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Data Collection and Disclosure. Finally, the Executive Order asks the NCUA—along with other supervisory financial boards—to 1) support a number of regulatory changes regarding Federal Home Loan Banks, 2) change considerations for what qualifies as commercial housing development, ensuring homes for 1-4 families are not categorized and supervised as such, and 3) require fewer in-person signatures, lean more into electronic document signing and remote notarization, and be up to par with modern digital mortgage standards.

Despite not being specifically named in the EO, America’s Credit Unions argues that the EO still applies to credit unions, as it names the NCUA specifically. Therefore, in response to the Executive Order, America’s Credit Unions has called on the NCUA to begin issuing said regulatory relief. ACU’s head of Regulatory Advocacy James Akin notes that the order is “focused on reducing many of the regulatory burdens and hurdles that were put in place after the financial crisis,” and says that “it is pretty clear to us, from every section throughout the executive order, that credit unions are included, because the NCUA is specifically directed to take actions to provide regulatory relief.”

The NCUA has yet to comment on the Executive Order. You can view the entire Executive Order on the official White House website.