ABA Welcomes Treasury and Fed Support for Regulatory Changes to Help America’s Community Banks

“We are highly encouraged by the wide range of pending reforms outlined by Treasury Secretary Bessent and Vice Chair Bowman at today's Community Bank Conference hosted by the Federal Reserve. The changes Secretary Bessent spelled out, many of which have long been recommended by ABA, will allow America’s community banks to better serve their customers and communities. In particular, we welcome Treasury support for lowering the Community Bank Leverage Ratio, which would help make this simplified capital framework attractive to a broader range of community banks without compromising safety and soundness. We also appreciate Treasury’s focus on Bank Secrecy Act reforms that will allow banks to devote more of their time to identifying illicit finance rather than filling out unnecessary paperwork, as well as Treasury’s commitment to an improved supervisory process to ensure examiners focus on financial risk, not procedures and process. In addition, our members welcome Treasury's interest in making sure core providers are helping community banks offer the modern products and services customers expect in today’s highly competitive financial services marketplace. Finally, after sharing our own recommendations for modernizing deposit Bessent, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Scott and other lawmakers given its importance to all banks.

“It's notable that all of these issues are being raised at a major Fed conference in Washington. We sincerely appreciate Vice Chair Bowman for hosting today's Community Bank Conference and for shining a spotlight on the challenges facing America's community banks and the critical role they play in the U.S. economy. We applaud her support for additional reforms including the need to index asset thresholds and recent changes designed to make it easier to launch and grow mutual institutions. After today's conference, we will be better prepared to work with the Fed, Treasury and all the banking agencies to create a regulatory framework that gives banks of all sizes the chance to compete and succeed today and into the future.”