Recently I attended the ICBA’s Capital Summit trip to Washington D.C. This has become an annual trip to our nation’s capital to join with banking associations from all 50 states to lobby on behalf of community banking and protect our industry from senseless overregulation and look for needed reform. During this session, we visited with both our state Senator’s offices as well as a few members of the House of Representatives and discussed a wide array of topics and concerns. We discussed a few top of mind items such as: 1) Limiting Mortgage Trigger Leads; 2) Repealing the 1071 rule (Small Business Loan Data Collection Rule from Dodd-Frank); 3) Oppose the Credit Card Competition Act and any attachment to GENIUS act or other bills; 4) Pass the ACRE act in any upcoming bill or legislation to level the playing field for community banks with respect to farm and rural home lending interest income; 5) Opposed to any creation of a retail Central Bank Digital Currency; 6) deal with the tax-exempt credit unions and either start taxing them at $1B size or disallow them from purchasing tax-paying banks across the US (in 2024 every 1 out of 5 bank acquisitions/mergers was a credit union buying a bank).
These are just a few of the issues that we encounter within the community banking sector. Any of these issues on their own merit are important, but the list unfortunately, never ends. The assault on the banking industry does not take a break and it is our duty to be diligent and bring these issues to light. It is our duty to enlighten our elected officials to these issues to protect our way of life and our livelihood within our communities we serve.
I encourage everyone to take time to write to your elected officials from time to time. The ICBA (Independent Community Bankers of America), MIBA (Missouri Independent Bankers Association) and the MBA (Missouri Bankers Association) all have web pages with plenty of advocacy materials and resources (often pre-filled letters for you to populate your name and hit send). These options take very little time but add up and keep these issues in the forefront of our politicians to let them know where we stand and how it impacts community banks, our customers and our communities.
President/CEO
Matthew Laumann
