Jacob Eisen: How Community Banks Can Navigate This New Era of Payments Policy

Payments increasingly warrant community bank leaders’ scrutiny, particularly in today’s regulatory environment. Consider that a little more than a year ago, President Trump issued an executive order directing the Treasury Department to transition from paper checks to electronic payments for all federal disbursements and receipts. Since then, Congress has passed the GENIUS Act and continues to consider digital asset market structure legislation.  

How are recent legislative acts shaping the digital asset market?

Today, there’s widespread concern among community bankers about the rules and regulations that apply to digital asset-related entities. ICBA and community bankers will continue advocating for a fair and equitable playing field for community banks. We must continue our fight to retain and grow deposits in an increasingly digital world surrounded by new market entrants.

How does the Credit Card Competition Act impact community banks?

In addition to digital asset concerns, the Credit Card Competition Act threatens to inhibit community banks’ abilities to respond to their community’s needs. As ICBA has repeatedly pointed out, including in a joint letter to members of Congress, this policy would harm consumers, small businesses and community banks by reducing choice and increasing costs and fraud risks.  

Data proves the point: Federal Reserve data shows that the Durbin Amendment harmed “exempted” community-based institutions (those under $10 billion in assets), driving down revenues by up to 35% and introducing per-transaction costs 20 times higher than those that larger banks face.

How is ICBA advocating for a fair payments policy?

While emerging payments policy issues are throwing us curveballs, it’s not ICBA’s first time at bat. We have a long history of advocating for a fair and equitable payments environment, and the association remains actively engaged in today’s landscape. We remain engaged with policymakers to ensure they understand the unintended consequences that harmful policy proposals would have.  

That’s why it’s so important that you continue to make your voices heard. Each of you has a payments story to tell, one that can articulate the community-level impact these decisions would have. With the passion you bring to the table, I have no doubt that your members of Congress will hear the message loud and clear.  

It makes me proud to serve as CEO of ICBA Payments and TCM Bank, and I relish knowing that we can help you address your customers’ needs. By supporting you in capturing a growing percentage of transactional payments revenue and the associated customer relationships, ICBA Payments seeks to ensure that you both persevere and thrive.  

Working with ICBA Payments and TCM Bank helps fuel our collective missions, as well as deepening your connection to the ICBA community. In today’s payments policy era, that’s a strategic and critical place to be to support our collective future prosperity as community banks.