Independent Banker - April 2017 - 9

Fine Points
By Camden R. Fine, president and CEO of ICBA
Let's see it through
N
ow is a great time to be a community
banker. Spring brought with it a powerful
and successful ICBA Community
Banking LIVE national convention. And as we
look ahead to the ICBA Capital Summit kicking
off this month in the nation's capital, our industry
is well positioned to achieve some historic
policy victories in Washington.
We have fought long and hard for tiered, proportional
regulation for community banks. We
have battled for the kind of substantial relief that
will truly energize our local economies, and now
we're on the verge of getting it. But before we
We have an excellent
opportunity before us, and we
cannot afford to waste it.
get carried away, let's remember that we have
been fighting for meaningful relief for years-
and we're not there yet.
Nothing in Washington is ever easy. Seeing
significant reforms through to the president's
desk is always hard work, no matter who is in
charge. Now is the time for community bankers
to rededicate ourselves to the job at hand. Now
is our chance to dig deep, stay active and see
regulatory relief all the way through to the end.
After all, we have gotten this far only through
the hard work of those who came before us. Our
mission goes back to ICBA's formative day.
May 9, 1930. Amid a financial panic, 28
community bankers gathered to discuss what
to do about two large bank holding companies
intent on vacuuming up every local bank in the
Ninth Federal Reserve District. Rather than sell
out, these independent bankers passed a hat
for donations, used their collective strength to
resist, and founded what is now ICBA.
Those individuals stood up for our industry's
principles of relationship banking and our
nation's ideals of independence and localized
service. What brought them together then is
the same thing that binds us together today.
Our strength still comes from collective action,
our actions remain guided by principle, and
our achievements are due to nothing less than
hard work.
So in this season of rising temperatures and
sunlit evenings, we cannot afford to sit back and
rest on our laurels. We have far too many issues
up in the air: regulatory relief, tax reform, credit
union and Farm Credit System mission creep, and
more. As optimistic as we might feel about the
prospects of meaningful reform, we must work
all the more diligently to finish the job. Now is
the time to meet with lawmakers face to face at
the ICBA Capital Summit, to sign ICBA's Plan
for Prosperity petition on behalf of meaningful
reform, and to ensure we are fully engaged on our
advocacy goals, from the C-suite to the front line.
We cannot allow ourselves to be drowned
out amid the clamor of competing interests in
Washington. We have an excellent opportunity
before us, and we cannot afford to waste it. We
have been at it too long to settle for anything less
than our absolute best.
So let's continue to speak out in solidarity.
Let's continue to fight on behalf of our independent
voice. Let's keep at it until the job is done.
We owe it to ourselves, to our industry, to our
local communities and to all those who came
before us to see this thing through all the way to
the end.
Follow Camden R. Fine on Twitter,
@Cam_Fine.
independentbanker.org
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Independent Banker - April 2017

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