The Nebraska Credit Union League (NCUL) aligns with the national priorities of America’s Credit Unions (ACU) for 2026, focusing on the core pillars of Protect, Empower, and Advance credit unions, aiming to enhance their ability to serve members by ensuring regulatory fairness, modernizing charters, improving fraud prevention, and expanding access to credit union services for all Nebraskans.
The advocacy priorities fall within the core areas of advance, empower, and protect to reflect industry needs. Constructed with direct feedback from member credit unions and leagues, they build on a successful year in advocacy defending the credit union tax status.
Advance
EXPAND ACCESS TO CREDIT UNIONS by giving more people and businesses the ability to join and partner with a credit union for their financial needs. This also includes fighting efforts to stop or slow credit union growth, challenging attempts to create unnecessary regulatory burdens and supporting needed modernization and programs that fill community needs.
MODERNIZE THE CREDIT UNION CHARTER to revamp outdated provisions that impede growth. Strengthen credit unions’ ability to best serve all members within a competitive dual-chartering system that provides greater opportunities to invest in people and communities.
ESTABLISH A FEDERAL DATA PROTECTION STANDARD that preempts state laws, accounts for credit unions’ existing compliance with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and includes robust security requirements that apply to all who collect or hold personal data with a comprehensive approach to national data security and privacy.
Empower
ENHANCE FRAUD PREVENTION to combat fraud in all forms. Establish improved ways to protect credit union members and prevent fraud. Modernize federal standards to prevent disproportionate fraud costs for credit unions and their members.
REFORM CFPB STRUCTURE AND RULE-MAKING with a bipartisan commission under the congressional appropriations process for greater stability, transparency, and oversight. We support rule-making within statutory mandates, through correct processes, and using meaningful cost-benefit analysis.
EXPAND INNOVATION OPPORTUNITIES in the face of rapidly evolving technologies and products with parity in legislation, tailored regulations, and more flexibility and authority for credit unions to develop, use, and adopt technologies meeting their members’ needs in areas including digital assets, payments innovations, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
PROTECT
REINFORCE THE CREDIT UNION TAX STATUS to advance communities, improve the financial future for all people, and keep local economies strong. It is integral to credit unions’ structure and mission of “people.”
PROTECT INTERCHANGE to ensure affordable access to credit and continued electronic payments protections and benefits supported by interchange fees. At both the state and federal level, we are committed to fighting measures that would put retailers’ profits ahead of consumers’ access and security.
SUPPORT A STRONG, INDEPENDENT CREDIT UNION
REGULATORY REGIME with an independent credit union regulator and a full bipartisan board that understands credit unions’ unique challenges and needs, while providing right-sized regulations that safeguard credit union members without regulatory overreach.
