open message boards that allow community banks a place to talk and ask questions openly. Many community banks want and need to create efficiencies. The Bankers Helping Bankers program helps these community banks to manage their transformation with fintech and offer services that generate revenue they haven’t been able to offer before. How did you get into banking? I did everything the hard way. I had a child, got married and decided I needed to figure life out. My wife and I worked and went to school fulltime while our child was still young. I became a community banking administrative assistant and worked my way up. It was hard, but it helped me become who I am today. How long have you been with IBAT? I started in early 2022. IBAT hired me because I was a community banker and understood community banking needs. Community bankers listen to me because I am one of them. What are your main job responsibilities? I help banks with the Bankers Helping Bankers program. When I asked Christopher Williston what I would do, he said I would make sure community bankers have the information they need to make educated decisions. You have a story about babies, bankers and a river. Would you please tell us that story? Two guys are sitting by a river fishing and enjoying the day. A baby suddenly comes floating down the river. They jump up, rush into the river and save the baby. When they started talking to each other, wondering why the baby was in the river, they saw another baby in the water. As more and more babies come down the river, one of the guys keeps running into the river to save the babies, but the other guy starts running up the river bank. “What are you doing?” yells the first guy. The second one yells, “I’m going to find out who is throwing babies in the river, and then I’m going to stop them.” I’m like the second guy. It’s my job to make sure no more charters go away. The number of U.S. banks is decreasing. What role has legislation played, and how did the Great Recession and COVID-19 contribute to the trend? The Consumer Financial Protection Program (CFPB) was started in 2010 and 2011 in response to the Great Recession. Sen. Elizabeth Warren never led CFPB, but she served as a senior adviser and influenced how it was set up and who was hired. Key roster assignments went to people with credentials from the financial sector. When these senior staffers at CFPB left the organization to work in the financial sector again, they helped big banking and securities firms understand how to navigate the rules they’d written. The agency became a revolving door between government and industry. Community banks didn’t cause the banking problems legislators were trying to solve, but bad legislation placed a costly burden on community banking and decreased revenue. The new rules weren’t a problem for big banks. They can absorb the cost, pay the fines and hire the staff because they have the budget. Community banks can’t. Then COVID-19 and the pandemic shutdown came along. Community banks ensured that every person in the U.S. got their paycheck through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Money moved at the community bank level, not the megabank level. It was unprecedented. What we are seeing now is a grassroots trend. People saw how banks stepped up and wanted to ensure that the local community bank would not disappear. Why is it bad that there are fewer community banks? What is their role in small-town communities? Big banks don’t see the value in loaning local small businesses the money they need to grow and build. They won’t make loans for less than a specific dollar amount. But if the big banks don’t do those loans, who will? Who will continue to support local businesses and school districts? Are big banks going to put their name on a scoreboard or hand out water at a community event? We need community banks because small businesses can’t get loans anywhere else. In places without a community bank, small businesses are not doing well. The entire community withers because it loses jobs that could have kept people there. To see it, all you have to do is look at the main street in a town with a community bank, then in a Who will continue to support local businesses and school districts? Are big banks going to put their name on a scoreboard or hand out water at a community event? 8 The CommunityBanker
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