Just before Christmas last year, the ICBA announced that a change in the calendar of the U.S. House of Representatives had compelled a change in date for its 2023 Capital Summit. The Summit, held each spring in the nation’s capital, is the advocacy event of the year for the voice of community bankers in Virginia and across the nation. It was not a small change. In fact, the change of date had moved this important event directly into the middle of shareholder meeting season in Virginia, causing numerous longtime VACB participants to cancel their plans to attend.
But when the dust had settled in mid-May on another successful ICBA Capital Summit, VACB bankers had told the Virginia community banking story in 12 of Virginia’s 13 Congressional offices (both of our senators and 10 of 11 representatives), meeting personally with both senators and five representatives, and with senior banking aides for five other representatives.
The stories were easy to tell, but they had to be told in order to protect the community bank brand. We defended the prized community bank business model against the painfully obvious shortcomings of the speculative lending/explosive growth model that doomed Silicon Valley Bank on one coast and Signature Bank on another. We urged our delegation to keep community banks safe from any corrective action, financial or regulatory, to be levied against much larger banks with much riskier profiles, just as the FDIC had done in early May by exempting community banks from the assessment to replenish the DIF. Our elected representatives listened and were supportive.
We also spoke of the burdens being imposed by coming rules to mandate disclosure of small business lending data when Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act is finally implemented. We shared concerns over the bureaucratic momentum behind the development of a central bank digital currency and concerns about inadequate regulation of stablecoin (cryptocurrencies, et al.), which, in actuality, are neither “stable” nor “coin.” We advocated ways to level the playing field with credit unions and others and, when we had the chance, spoke to even more issues of concern.
It was encouraging to see the great mixture of new participants with “long-timers,” and I’d like to thank each of them individually.
- William Bauder — National Capital Bank
- John Brough — Chain Bridge Bank
- Debra Cope — MainStreet Bank
- Dennis Dysart — First Bank
- Anthony Edwards — Skyline National Bank
- Aaron Green — Pendleton Community Bank
- Mark Hanna — ICBA Virginia Delegate
- James Hendricks — Village Bank
- Abdul Hersiburane — MainStreet Bank
- Claire O’Connor — National Capital Bank
- Phillip Quintana — Summit Community Bank
- Jay Stafford — Benchmark Community Bank
It would be great to have even more bankers joining us in future advocacy efforts. Please be ready when the calls come. The work is important and rewarding, and it’s the most important way to promote and defend this highly valued and widely supported industry.
