This week, the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) told the House Financial Services Committee that the new Congress and administration present an opportunity to transform the regulatory environment for community banks to promote locally based economic growth.
ICBA president and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey outlined ICBA’s proposals to implement policies it believes will ensure a positive future for community banks. Romero Rainey also thanked Chairman French Hill for crafting a set of banking principles to guide policymaking and regulatory oversight in the 119th Congress, which ICBA is committed to realizing.
“The new Congress and administration present an opportunity to transform the regulatory environment to support community banking and economic growth in rural, suburban, and urban markets,” Romero Rainey said. “We look forward to working with the Financial Services Committee in the coming weeks to leverage and amplify the unique and extraordinary value our great community banks bring to local economies.”
Romero Rainey said that community banks reinvest local deposits into local credit for the communities they serve—with more than 1,000 community banks in operation for over a century. She cited the importance of the industry’s outsized small-business and agricultural lending as well as its responsible innovation.
To guide policymakers in reforming community banking policies to promote sustained growth, Romero Rainey called on Congress to:
- Advance tiered regulations through a comprehensive update of regulatory thresholds.
- Provide relief from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 1071 small-business data collection and reporting requirements through House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams’ 1071 Repeal to Protect Small Business Lending Act.
- Promote the formation of de novo community banks through Rep. Andy Barr’s Promoting New Bank Formation Act (H.R. 478).
- Promote and strengthen community development financial institutions and minority depository institutions.
- Support equivalent supervision, oversight, and taxation for financial services providers, including credit unions and Farm Credit System lenders.
- Strengthen financial consumers by ending mortgage “trigger leads” harassment, closing the industrial loan company loophole, helping community banks eliminate check fraud, opposing credit card routing mandates, protecting consumer data from the CFPB’s 1033 rule, and more.
