UFCW Legislative
and Political
Affairs Department
ALERT
________________________________________________________________________________
Legislative
Alert # 117
March
21,
2005
MARCH 2005
RECESS: WAL-MART AND BANKING
The House
Financial Services Committee is preparing to mark up legislation
concerning
business
checking accounts. What concerns us about that
legislation is making sure
that it closes the Wal-Mart
loophole in
banking.
Our goal is
simple-to support the Gillmor-Frank language from last year that
ensures
commercial firms
(those with more than 15 percent of their
business in non-financial
businesses) are prohibited from
purchasing
Industrial Loan Companies (ILCs). In
other words, large commercial business like Wal-Mart
would not be able to be banks too!
UFCW is one of
the founding members of the Sound Banking Coalition, along with the
Independent
Community Bankers of America, the National Grocers
Association,
and the National Convenience
Store Association. Last
year, we were instrumental
in getting the amendment sponsored by
Representatives Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH) and
Barney Frank (D-MA),
passed in the Committee and the
House of Representatives!
With your help,
we can win this again! Below is a list of members of the House
Financial
Services
Committee who need to hear from you. If one of
them is from your state, please
call and tell them to make
sure that lLCs can’t be purchased by commercial firms like
Wal-Mart; it’s bad
for the economy and bad for
your local community. Don’t let
Wal-Mart
win this one-call these House Members before they return on April 4: |
