Pub. 4 2014-2015 Issue 3

6 O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S - H E L P I N G C O L O R A D A N S R E A L I Z E D R E A M S Election results will be known by the time you read this. Our highly contested races for the next U.S. Senator and Governor and Representative for CD all should be known by then. We’ll also know the outcome of more predictable elections for the Colorado House and Senate and on statewide ballot initiatives. The consequences of these elections are real. They impact your career and the value of your bank stock very directly. Wash- ington determines your reality. Public officials, particularly at the federal level, set the rules by which banks and other businesses perform and how they are rewarded or punished. The customer impact, quantity and complexity of regulations like QM and ATR that plague your lives is determined by the winners of the elections. InOctober theCBAconducted its “WashingtonVisit” and took 13 bankers toWashington to meet with regulators and Congres- sional representatives. Many of the participants aremembers of CBA’s advocacy programand they left with a newunderstanding of whatWashingtondoes to and fourU.S. citizens and businesses. In a whirlwind 48 hours, CBA and ABA prepared them on the major issues, and wemet with Treasury officials, Chairman Yel - len at the Federal reserve, OCC senior officials, Federal Housing Finance Authoritymanagement (regulates Freddie and Fannie), FDIC Vice Chairman Hoenig and CFPB senior officials and the offices for our U.S. Senators and Representatives Gardner and Perlmutter (and hosting a reception for them) as well as touring Washington, DC monuments in the evening. Several lessons in merged: • Reducing banks’ regulatory burden, particularly H.R.2673 to designate portfolio loans as compliant with ATR and QM may or may not make progress in the “lame duck” session following the elections. The legislation is well positioned and there is a sliver of hope that progress can bemade then. • Bank regulators have changed their tune from responses implying the unacceptability of banking marijuana busi- nesses to now saying that it is the banks’ prerogative to bank these businesses so long as they comply with the DoJ and FinCENmemos. Since they regretfully do not reference the regulatory risk and impossibility of complying with them, that leaves the public with the impression the regulators aren’t blocking banks from serving marijuana businesses but it is the banks’ own determination that does so. We continue to believe that only Congress can resolve this issue and that faces a tough future. • I concluded fromour visits that banking as an industry has failed to effectively convey to public officials (Members of Congress and regulators) the crushing effect of regulatory burden and the damage from subsidized competitors – specifically credit unions and the Farm Credit System. The CBA Board at its October meeting outlined a plan for greatly improving that communication. CBA’s Center for Bank Advocacy is wrapping up its second year and will graduate in December bankers who have spent this last year learning about how to be better advocates for their bank and their industry. The monthly activities culminated in going on the Washington Visit. Each participant also did a specific advocacy project relevant to their bank. We urge each Colorado bank to enroll at least one banker in this Advocacy programnext year by contactingmike Bintner at (303)-825-1575 or mike@coloradobankers.org . One of the participants summarized the Washington visit as providing “shock and awe” about the scale of our federal government’s impact on banking. That certainly is true and we encourage you to be in the Advocacy program next year. n Don Childears President and CEO Colorado Bankers Association A Word from CBA... Washington Determines Your Reality