February 27, 2007

DODD ADDRESSES CREDIT UNION NATIONAL ASSOCIATION GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS CONFERENCE

Speaks to Importance of Credit Unions as Means of Expanding Opportunity, Prosperity, Security for Americans

U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, today addressed the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), highlighting and discussing the important role that credit unions can play in bringing access to credit to underserved communities, and the positive impact that has had in many communities throughout America. “Fundamentally, your customers seek a relationship that will provide them the tools to realize their dreams of a more secure, prosperous and hopeful future,” Dodd said. “This relationship will allow them to prudently plan for life’s most important milestones: owning one’s first home, buying a new car, paying for a child’s college education, planning a safe and secure retirement.” Senator Dodd urged credit unions to look at the realities of emerging trends in the market, the shifting demands of their customers and other factors. He pledged to support them in extending loans and other affordable financial products to hard-working, tax-paying American families. “In my mind, meeting these ‘challenges’ necessitate a renewed commitment to the core principles and mission of the credit union movement, not a fundamental rethinking of the credit union movement itself,” Dodd said. CUNA’s Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC), a group of approximately 4,200 credit union leaders from around the nation, is designed to bring the voice of credit unions to lawmakers – and to bring the voice of lawmakers and policymakers to credit unions about the latest issues affecting credit unions, financial institutions and consumer finance. The GAC is expected to be the largest gathering of credit union representatives for the year. The 2007 GAC is among the largest ever conducted by CUNA.