General Assembly Adjourns; Lawmakers Create CDFI Fund

The General Assembly has officially adjourned, with a couple of measures of interest to credit unions being forwarded to the governor for his signature.

• Your League was pleased to see the establishment of a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) fund for the state with $10 million in funding come July 1. The fund’s primary purpose would be to provide loans, grants and forgivable loans to small businesses or community revitalization real estate projects through community development credit unions and banks. Criteria for the program is to be developed by the Department of Housing and Community Development. The appropriation includes up to $300,000 for administrative overhead, including the hiring of up to three full-time employees.
• Your League supports HB1964 (Del. Lamont Bagby) which provides the State Corporation Commission should more flexibility in working with troubled credit unions prior to insolvency.
• Your League worked to amend HB2175 (Del. Luke Torian) to protect creditors’ interest with respect to judgment liens. This bill is identical to SB 1327. (Jennifer L. McClellan).

Your League also worked with a large group of stakeholders on companion bills HB2307 (Del. Cliff Hayes)/SB1392 (Sen. Dave Marsden), which have created a data privacy bill for consumer protection. Credit unions are exempted owing to our compliance with the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, but laws that touch on consumer data protection are obviously of keen interest to credit unions. The bill has been signed by the governor but has a delayed effective date of Jan. 1, 2023.

Virginia is the second state in the nation to adopt its own data protection rules.

The law, known as the Consumer Data Protection Act had broad support from the tech industry, and will allow residents of the commonwealth to opt out of having their data collected and sold, similar to a California law that went into effect last year. Under the new law, Virginia residents can also see what data companies have collected about them, and correct or delete it.