Uniform Consumer Credit Code (UCCC) Improvements – HB 1136
As the Indiana General Assembly heads toward its last week in session, the League’s top-priority legislation, HB 1136, is on its way to Governor Holcomb to be signed into law. HB 1136, which would provide state-chartered credit unions with improvements to the Uniform Consumer Credit Code (UCCC), passed the Senate on April 16, by a vote of 42-6. Because the Senate made a minor change to the bill, which does not impact our language, the bill had to go back to the House for a concurrence vote. The House voted today to pass the bill on to the Governor by a vote of 66-23. Once signed by the Governor, the changes will go into effect on July 1.
The road has been challenging for HB 1136 as we have had to fight every step of the way to keep the bill from becoming engulfed in the broader fight over payday lending expansion legislation. This challenge became more acute this week as the payday bill (SB 613) died on the House floor when the bill author did not call it down for a final vote knowing that it was 3-4 votes short. With the defeat of the payday bill, our bill became the only possible home for resurrecting the payday language. We have fought hard this week to keep that from happening, and we are now on our way to the Governor’s desk. As a reminder, HB 1136 calls for a summer study committee to review the full UCCC and would:
- Change the existing UCCC “transaction charge” to allow a fee of the greater of $10 or 2%. Currently, the limit is the lesser of $10 or 2%. The most common application of the “transaction charge” is for credit card balance transfer and cash advance fees.
- Increase the allowable delinquency charge from $19 to $25. It also would remove this from the indexing process that results in an amount that changes every two years with the Consumer Price Index.
- Make improvements to a complicated provision of the UCCC called the “current installment rule” that creates confusion for lenders trying to post delinquent loan payments and collect the appropriate delinquency charge.
Do Not Call List – HB 1123
While the League’s UCCC improvement bill would impact only state-chartered credit unions, the League has actively engaged in supporting HB 1123 that would help all credit unions by providing financial institutions with an exemption from Indiana’s strict “do not call” statute. This legislation is one big step closer to becoming law after passing the Senate on April 16 by a vote of 48-0. The League, along with the Indiana Bankers Association, worked to keep the financial institution exemption in place even as an amendment was adopted on the Senate floor to remove an exemption for telecommunications companies and water down an existing exemption for insurance agents. HB 1123 includes language that would give financial institutions the chance to call current customers by exempting calls made by a financial institution made to a consumer with whom the financial institution has "an established business relationship" as defined under the federal "do not call" regulations. While credit unions would still be required to follow the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), an exemption from Indiana’s more restrictive law would be beneficial and provide more opportunities for contacting members who might be on the Indiana “do not call” list. Even as we have had success moving this bill through the process with our exemption language intact, HB 1123 will have to go through the conference committee process, which keeps our exemption language at-risk. We will continue to work hard to keep the language in the bill as the process continues.
