A PRODUCTIVE VISIT TO WASHINGTON JOHN W. ANDERSON Executive Vice President New Mexico Bankers Association I, along with several other New Mexico bankers, made the trip to our nation’s capital in early March to attend the annual ABA Washington Summit. We enjoyed a fantastic lineup of speakers, including Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, FDIC Chairman Travis Hill and Conference of State Bank Supervisors President and CEO Brandon Milhorn. The summit gave us an opportunity to advocate to our New Mexico congressional delegation on critical issues affecting our industry. During those meetings, we discussed the following matters: 1. Digital Asset Market Oversight Emerging digital asset models, including payment stablecoins, must operate under regulatory standards that protect consumers and prevent firms from bypassing banking industry supervision. The GENIUS Act prohibited interest, yield or rewards for stablecoin holders, though some companies are sidestepping that restriction through affiliates and exchanges, threatening community-based deposits and lending. We requested the closure of the interest payment loophole to preserve deposit stability and further support local lending. 2. Credit Card Market Preservation The Credit Card Competition Act (S. 3623 and H.R. 7035) and the 10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act (S. 381 and H.R. 1944) would impose government mandates on the credit card market, weakening transaction security, limiting community banks’ card offerings, reducing access to credit and eliminating consumer benefits like credit card reward programs. We encouraged our legislative delegation to oppose the Credit Card Competition Act and the 10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act. 3. Regulatory Threshold Reform Many regulatory thresholds have remained fixed for decades, even as the economy and banking sector have grown, extending requirements intended for more complex institutions to banks that were never meant to be captured. This imposes an unnecessary burden, discourages organic growth and dilutes supervisory resources. We requested that our delegation prioritize a one-time adjustment and the adoption of indexing, such as tying asset-based thresholds to nominal DP, to ensure regulatory thresholds EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 6
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