adminCredit unions in Florida have had a big week in the legislature. A third piece of priority legislation has passed the House and Senate and moves to the governor’s desk. HB 1233, sponsored by Rep. Cyndi Stevenson (R-St. Augustine) and Sen. Rene Garcia (R-Hialeah), passed the full Senate on a 38-0 vote. It had passed the full House last week. It now awaits Gov. Rick Scott’s signature.
HB 1233 will require the Florida Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) to enter into an information sharing agreement with the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) Atlanta that will finally allow state chartered credit unions in Florida access to the FHLBank Atlanta’s secondary market mortgage program. For several years, state chartered credit unions have been denied access to the program because the FHLBank could not review their examination report and determine if they were a healthy enough institution to participate.
The League thanks Rep. Stevenson and Sen. Garcia, and their staffs, for all their hard work on this legislation. This legislative session has already been one of the more successful ones in recent history for credit unions.
