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Online Course Newsletter – September 2024
Renewal season is coming soon! Standard Plan, Custom Plan, and Bank Compliance Bundle subscribers will be receiving their renewal invoice for the 2025 subscription year next month.
Online Course Newsletter – October 2024
Standard Plan, Custom Plan, and Bank Compliance Bundle subscribers paper renewal invoices were mailed Thursday, October 18. A letter is enclosed with the invoice telling you about what benefits you...
Online Course Newsletter – December 2024
Standard Plan, Custom Plan, and Bank Compliance Bundle subscribers’ renewal invoices are due by Dec. 31 to maintain access to the Online Course Learning Management System.
Online Course Newsletter – February 2025
Did you know that when a learner completes a course and passes the test, they can review the questions they answered correctly and view the correct answer for any they missed?
ICBA Capital Summit: Spring 2021 Legislative Priorities
Download PDF Community Banks: A Lifeline To Individuals & Small Business in the Pandemic Economy Community banks provided 60 percent of first round PPP loans, serving many customers turned...
Being Prepared for Virtual Lobby Day Meetings
Since the ICBA Capital Summit this year will be virtual, successful meetings require a different set of tools.
Online Course Newsletter – January 2025
ICBA stives to provide best-in-class training for community banks. We want to be sure we have what you need as well as what you want. We would appreciate it if you could take two minutes to answer...
Online Course Newsletter – May 2025
The regulatory environment is changing daily. This constant back and forth makes it hard to know which rules to follow. At ICBA we work diligently to ensure that our training is up to date with the...
Taking on the Big Guys
Taking on the Big Guys Just as one of the most challenging years since the Great Depression was drawing to a close, ICBA and our close to 5,000 member community banks found ourselves the center of...
Appearances
Appearances Bankers Respond to FinReg CNBC Bloomberg TV-Small Business Lending Bloomberg: JP Morgan Chase and Too Big to Fail CNBC – Geithner Meeting CNBC Squawk Box: Sandy Weill CNBC- The State of...
Some Personal Observations
Some Personal Observations Many of you know that I am a history buff. Well, last weekend I was reading a history of the American Revolution and I got to thinking about how history is full of...
Snowblind
Snowblind As I look out the window of our home in suburban Washington, D.C. at the blizzard, I finally know the true meaning of the term snowblind. In recent weeks, there are those in our industry...
2024 Advocacy Priorities
Community banks are locally based and relationship-focused institutions serving the unique needs of their customers. With a time-tested business model of sound lending and conservative risk...
About Cam Fine
About Cam Fine Camden R. Fine is president and CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), a national trade association representing the interests of nearly 7,000 community banks of...
Adding My Voice
Adding My Voice Anyone who knows me knows I hate to pass up any opportunity to talk about community banks. As a community banker for more than 20 years, I’ve seen firsthand the important role local...
Connect
Connect Subscribe to RSS Feed Follow Cam Fine on Twitter ICBA on Social Media Twitter: www.twitter.com/icba Facebook: www.facebook.com/icbaorg LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/icba YouTube:...
“Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” and the Truth about the CFPA
“Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” and the Truth about the CFPA My fellow Missourian Mark Twain made the following observations about lies: “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.” “A lie can...
Standing Like a Rock
Standing Like a Rock Thomas Jefferson once said, “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” ICBA has long had the reputation of standing on principle...
Setting the Tone in Washington
Setting the Tone in Washington For decades Wall Street mega firms and their Washington, D.C. trade group allies have set the financial policy tone in the nation’s capitol. But beginning in early...
Mr. Lockhart, Old Stories and Shakespeare
Mr. Lockhart, Old Stories and Shakespeare After I read the transcript and viewed the video clip of Mr. Lockhart's remarks on CNBC’s "Squawk Box" in which he said, and I quote: "What we need is...
Naked What?—Cover your Eyes
Naked What?—Cover your Eyes As if bankers and politicians don’t have enough to worry about when it comes to public opinion and financial reform, the Senate has been debating whether or not to...
High Roads and Low Roads
High Roads and Low Roads There is no doubt that passions are running high in regard to the financial reform debate. There are many sides engaged in this generational issue. And all sides hold...
The Devil is in the Details
The Devil is in the Details Congress is working to wrap up the financial regulatory reform bill in the next few weeks. Community bankers know better than anyone how important it is to make sure...
Beware Those Unintended Consequences
Beware Those Unintended Consequences With a financial system as sophisticated, complicated and interconnected as ours, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that there are no easy fixes. We didn’t...
Friday Night Lights Out
Friday Night Lights Out Last Friday night, the lights went out for four “too-small-to-save” banks. They faced the ultimate in resolution authority. I knew the bank presidents of two of the four...
A Central Bank With No Center? A Lesson From the Falcon and the Falconer
A Central Bank With No Center? A Lesson From the Falcon and the Falconer A central bank without a central role in the American banking and financial sector? Crazy, right? Absurd, you say? Not so...
The Elephant in the Room
The Elephant in the Room “When elephants stampede; it is the grass that gets trampled.” Thai Army proverb...
The Voices of Main Street
The Voices of Main Street “Only connect,” the novelist E.M. Forster urged people, almost a century ago. And nowhere are connections more important than here in Washington. Thanks to social media...
The Status Quo—Great for Wall Street, Fatal to Main Street
The Status Quo—Great for Wall Street, Fatal to Main Street Today two forces are facing off over financial reform—those who want real reform of Wall Street's greed and damaging practices and those...
Singing Out of the Wall Street Hymnal
Singing Out of the Wall Street Hymnal Just 20 banks of 8,000 now control over three quarters of our nation's assets and over 60 percent of its deposits. Community banks are at a 0.40 to 0.60...
Bailouts, big lies and moral bankruptcy
Bailouts, big lies and moral bankruptcy Evidently we’re not the only ones who are growing dizzy from all the spinning Wall Street is doing as it desperately tries to trick the American public into...
Focused
Focused Focus! The singular mission of ICBA is to enhance and protect the community bank charter—period. Never was the benefit of that focus more apparent than last Thursday when the Senate voted...
Calm Before the Storm
Calm Before the Storm Lawmakers are often a raucous bunch when they’re together, but Capitol Hill remains unusually quiet after the Labor Day holiday. Most members of Congress are still back in...
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine If you want to know who and what really triggered the financial chaos and calamity through which we all have just lived, a must read is The Big Short by...
FDIC Long-Term Plan Offers Short-Term Relief
FDIC Long-Term Plan Offers Short-Term Relief At a time when good news is hard to come by in the financial services industry, or anywhere for that matter, the FDIC’s recently proposed Deposit...
ICBA Convention on Pace for Banner Year
ICBA Convention on Pace for Banner Year When I was still running my community bank in Missouri, it was always important to me to find a way to get away for a week in March to attend ICBA’s National...
Community Bankers Take to the Hill
Community Bankers Take to the Hill It’s been a great week in Washington. While there is still a long row to hoe on a number of issues facing community banks, we made great progress this week as...
Taking Responsibility and Standing Tall
Taking Responsibility and Standing Tall Last week, as the great financial reform debate went into extra innings, temperatures were rising and everyone was tense and tired. When the conference...
Real Facts, and Beer
Real Facts, and Beer Lots of Washington, D.C., "pundits" and some association executives are sending out messages and summaries opining on the Dodd/Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection...
Reputations Intact: Proud To Be a Community Banker
Reputations Intact: Proud To Be a Community Banker One of the sad facts of this modern world in which we live is that we are bombarded with "messaging" nearly 24 hours a day. Our senses are...
Wanted: Sanity in the Exam Environment
Wanted: Sanity in the Exam Environment Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Given that definition, to many observers ICBA’s...
Persistence Pays Off on Small Business Jobs Act
Persistence Pays Off on Small Business Jobs Act The long and winding road of passing legislation to stimulate the small-business sector came to a successful end this week as the House voted to send...
Credit Unions Having Their Cake and Eating it Too
Credit Unions Having Their Cake and Eating it Too It’s official: The nation’s credit unions get to have their tax-exempt cake and eat it too! Federal regulators last Friday afternoon announced a...
A Robo-Sign of the Times
A Robo-Sign of the Times The so-called Masters of the Universe are at it again. Some of the same large financial institutions that caused the financial crisis have engaged in practices that could...
We the People
We the People We the People go to the polls today to engage in our sacred, inalienable right. The outcome of today’s midterm congressional elections will select the citizens who will come to...
A Sea Change
A Sea Change Acting Comptroller of the Currency John Walsh called it a “sea change.” He’s right. Today the FDIC board of directors voted to base assessments on assets minus tangible capital instead...
Deal on Tax Extenders Could Offer Holiday Cheer
Deal on Tax Extenders Could Offer Holiday Cheer Bipartisanship can be hard to come by in Washington, but there are encouraging signs that Congress and the administration have heard the voice of...
Recalling the Harsh Lessons of the Past
Recalling the Harsh Lessons of the Past More than three years ago I wrote the following article on the dangers of uncontrolled competition and overconcentration in the financial markets. Having...
ICBA United to Work with Divided Congress
ICBA United to Work with Divided Congress Congress will have a new look when it returns to Washington this week. With a Republican House and Democratic Senate following November’s elections, many...
Regulatory Review Must Deliver Results
Regulatory Review Must Deliver Results It sounds like a step in the right direction. President Obama recently ordered federal agencies and departments to review regulations and to consider ways to...
“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” and Neither Does ICBA
“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” and Neither Does ICBA Usually the time I spend on a plane is a way to lose myself in a book, reflect, catch up on work or perhaps enjoy a movie. On a recent trip,...
Stop Punishing Main Street Banks and Their Customers
Stop Punishing Main Street Banks and Their Customers Hey, here’s an idea. Let’s punish the thousands of small community banks that played by the rules and stuck by their customers during the...
Love is in the Air for Community Banks
Love is in the Air for Community Banks I’m not one for schmaltzy dramas. For those of you who don’t know, I’m more likely to take in a movie with scenes from Gettysburg or Omaha Beach. But this...
ICBA Convention Recognizes America’s Financial Foundation
ICBA Convention Recognizes America’s Financial Foundation Last week several thousand community bankers met in San Diego at the national convention of the Independent Community Bankers of America....
Interchange Legislation—A Reason to Dig Deep
Interchange Legislation—A Reason to Dig Deep The will of the nation’s community bankers to make their voices heard in Congress has never ceased to amaze me. Once again, it is time for community...
Cramdown: A Bad Idea That Continues to Smolder
Cramdown: A Bad Idea That Continues to Smolder Sometimes bad ideas are like grease fires—they can be hard to extinguish for good. In fact, one bad idea that ICBA has repeatedly doused with common...
Drawing Parallels to a Nation at War With Itself
Drawing Parallels to a Nation at War With Itself I just got back from an Executive Committee meeting in the great state of New Mexico. On April 12, 1861, guns in Charleston harbor opened up on Fort...
Big-Box Stores Selling Smoke and Mirrors on Interchange
Big-Box Stores Selling Smoke and Mirrors on Interchange A recent Washington Post op-ed suggests that small businesses should be wary of the promises of big-box retailers. A study conducted by David...
Strike Zones, 60 Votes and the Interchange Amendment
Strike Zones, 60 Votes and the Interchange Amendment When I was young I was a baseball player—a southpaw pitcher. I learned early on that each umpire had a slightly different variation on the...