ICBA continues differentiating community banks in media

ICBA continued its media push to differentiate community banks from larger institutions and to ensure any response to recent banking industry developments does not rope in community banks.

TV Appearance: On Fox Business’s “The Big Money Show,” ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said community banks are built for the long term and shouldn’t have to pay for recent failures at larger and riskier institutions, either through a special assessment or new regulations.

Stepping Back: “As bankers, we’re stepping back and saying, ‘wait a minute.’ Let’s look at the levels of concentration, the levels of growth. Where was the regulatory framework that was supposed to help manage through this?” Romero Rainey said. “Before any additional legislative or regulatory solutions are created, let’s take a good lookback at what’s happened and learn from this before we overreact and the pendulum swings in the other direction.”

Additional Coverage: Romero Rainey also told CNBC that policymakers cannot leave out community banks if they decide to provide unlimited deposit insurance, and she told MarketWatch that community bank deposits are holding strong. ICBA Chairman Derek Williams, president and CEO of Century Bank & Trust in Milledgeville, Ga., separately told Reuters that community banks aren’t seeing a negative reaction to recent events from customers.

Congressional Actions: Meanwhile, policymakers continued to weigh in. House Financial Services Committee leaders sent letters to FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding details on the Biden administration’s response to recent bank failures at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank of New York. Separately, the Senate Banking Committee chairman and ranking member called on the banks’ former CEOs to testify before their panel. Both committees have hearings scheduled for next week on the bank failures.

Ongoing ICBA Efforts: ICBA will continue educating the public, policymakers, and the news media about the stability of the community banking industry while opposing any efforts to rope community banks into the policy response to recent bank closures.