Pub. 8 2018-2019 Issue 6

2 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 A word from CBA… BY DON CHILDEARS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, COLORADO BANKERS ASSOCIATION Bankers visit nation’s capital, celebrate move- ment toward solution to ‘cannabis conundrum’ A cohort of Colorado bankers were among more than 1300 who visited the nation’s capital in April as part of the American Bankers Association’s spring government relations summit. Bankers met with Colorado’s representatives on the House Committee on Financial Services as well as with the state’s new members of Congress, or their representatives. Colorado’s Rep. Ed Perlmutter was in high spirits on the heels of his H.R.1595’s passage out of committee by a 45-15 vote, which was a good omen for a strong vote on floor of House. H.R. 1595 is the SAFE Act, which would create a safe harbor for banks for both deposits and loans for marijuana-related businesses, in states where can- nabis has been legalized. CBA assisted Perlmutter in crafting the bill a number of years ago, recognizing the need for MRBs and the tier 2 and 3 customers who do business with them. Colorado bankers told Perlmutter they would like to see passage of his SAFE Act and Senator Cory Gardner’s Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States Act, or STATES Act, which was reintroduced the same week we visited Washington D.C. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet is a cosponsor of the legis- lation, which seeks to ensure that each state has the right to individually determine its own approach to cannabis legalization and related issues. Representative Scott Tipton garnered praise from bankers for his support of H.R. 1595 as amember of the House Committee on Financial Services. Tipton noted he recently signed onto two letters regarding CECL (one to the Fed and another to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin) which was a regular topic of conversation with each member of Congress. Other topics of discussion included:  BSA/AML reform – Seeking to raise the CTR threshold, provide a seasoned customer exception and develop a data- base for beneficial owners  CECL – stop and study: Congress is urged to stop implementation of FASB’s CECL (regulators did not produce and are starting to have concern about negative impacts) and study the concept before any further implementation  Data security/privacy – Congress should apply national standards (so they don’t vary state by state) and apply them to all industries so that retailers, social media companies, credit bureaus… are all held to the same high standards that are applicable to banks now  Credit unions – Bankers emphasized continued expansion of big CUs (“tax exempt banks”), noting that some cred- it unions in the U.S. are buying banks (moving activity from taxable entities to tax exempt ones), and that in addition to not being subject to CRA, credit unions also don’t file 990s which every other nonprofit must file that provide basic transparency We will continue to keep you apprised of the trajectory of these and other issues that the industry faces both at the federal and state levels. 