It has been most heartening to see our leadership bankers leaning into the coming year. Not only did we elect a great leadership team and re-elect a great group of directors, we also expanded the board and elected five new bankers to join. The headwinds remain on several fronts, but our resolve and enthusiasm are rising to prevail.
How do we explain this surge in engagement? It happens because community bankers understand that they have a separate identity from other banks. It hasn’t always been so, but over the last 15 years or so, brick by brick, year by year, issue by issue, you have stood strong and spoken out, achieving key victories on critical issues that build the community bank brand and add to the viability of the community bank model.
We need to look no further back than November 16 for a perfect example of community bank clout in action. On that day, the FDIC approved a special assessment in the wake of the failures of Silicon Valley and Signature Banks that exempted community banks under $5 billion in assets. The savings for community banks and the defense of the community bank model made it worth the considerable effort exerted by the ICBA, VACB and VACB member banks to make the exemption happen. ICBA rallied support on Capitol Hill and among regulators for exempting community banks. VACB was quick to follow suit with the Virginia delegation. VACB member banks submitted numerous comment letters in support of the exemption.
No other bank trade association in Washington, D.C., or Virginia supported this important effort.
It’s a winning combination: ICBA, VACB and Virginia’s community banks.
Of course, the battle rages on in Washington, D.C., and in Richmond. On Capitol Hill and in the regulatory agencies, we are compelled to “play a lot of defense.” Our effort to stop the implementation of data reporting on small business loans, known as “1071 reporting,” or at least to narrow the scope of this broad, risky and costly requirement, will take a major effort, despite injunctions against it and progress on legislation to halt its implementation. ICBA is now providing resources that enable your business customers to join you; please take advantage of this opportunity to amplify our voice.
A long list of issues, legislative and regulatory, will keep us more than busy. Please respond when you see our alerts. December always holds a number of “Lame Duck Session” surprises, and there is usually little time to act on them.
In Richmond, the 2023 General Assembly elections left us with 18 new Senators and 34 new Delegates. That’s almost half of the State Senate and more than one-third of the House of Delegates! Please do all you can to increase your contact with your local General Assembly members. If you know them already, invite them to the bank for a meet-and-greet and a short conversation about key issues. If you don’t know them, seek them out at a public function ASAP, introduce yourself and invite them into a conversation about our community banking in Virginia. Offer yourself as a resource for any financial legislation the member may have questions about.
I look forward to 2024 and am most grateful for the many contributions you have made toward the success of our association in 2023. Our work together on advocacy is the cornerstone of our success, and I am thankful that our collaboration is making a difference in Virginia. May it ever be so!
