Business View - November 2014 135
Regional award winners are:
East: Ronald Paul, chairman and CEO, EagleBank,
Bethesda, Md.
Central: Jim Gowen Sr., chairman, Merchants & Plant-
ers Bank, Newport, Ark.
West: Mark Zaback, president and CEO, Jonah Bank of
Wyoming, Casper, Wyo.
ICBA sought nominations for passionate, innovative
and dedicated community bankers in September
and received more than 400 nominations. This is the
first year the association held this contest, which was
sponsored by D+H, and raised national recognition ex-
clusively for the nation’s community bankers.
ICBA urges balanced approach to mortgage-data re-
porting rules
The ICBA called on the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau to ensure its proposed changes to the Home
Mortgage Disclosure Act do not restrict community
bank lending. In a comment letter, ICBA said that the
CFPB’s proposal to expand data collection and report-
ing rules will compound existing regulatory and paper-
work burdens affecting community banks, their cus-
tomers and their communities.
“Regulatory compliance is continuing to deplete the
resources of community banks, which directly affects
their ability to compete in the marketplace and offer
consumer alternatives to the one-size-fits-all products
and services offered by big banks,” ICBA Vice Presi-
dent and Regulatory Counsel Elizabeth Eurgubian
said. “We strongly urge the CFPB to finalize new HMDA
requirements with a balanced approach that does not
restrict the lending businesses of smaller and less
complex banks.”
ICBA wrote in the comment letter that while it rec-
ognizes the significance of HMDA data in showing
how financial institutions meet the housing needs of
their communities, the costs of the CFPB’s proposed
changes would outweigh the benefits. With commu-
nity banks already facing new qualified mortgage, es-
crow, officer-compensation, servicing and disclosure
requirements, the expanded data-reporting standards
would further prevent community banks from making
residential mortgage loans and supporting the hous-
ing recovery. Meanwhile, none of the additional data
points proposed by the CFPB but not required by stat-
ute would add value to data the bureau already col-
lects, ICBA wrote.
Instead, ICBA encouraged the CFPB to take a balanced
approach to the rulemaking that does not require data
reporting not specifically mandated by Congress. The
association said extraneous data reporting does not
necessarily provide a better understanding of lending
practices, merely creates new data sources of ques-
tionable value, and can raise consumer privacy con-
cerns.
FINANCE
