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 community bankers gathered in the nation’s capital for the 2011 ICBA Washington Policy Summit.

Nearly 1,000 members of the community banking industry were in town to discuss the industry’s most pressing issues in meetings with members of Congress and federal banking regulators. Community bankers swarmed Capitol Hill to advocate delaying the debit card interchange rule, implementing regulatory relief for our industry and reining in the Farm Credit System, among other issues.

Not only that, but even community bankers not in Washington had a chance to join the action. With ICBA’s new Virtual Policy Summit, anyone with Internet access could tell their members of Congress to act on these initiatives.

This week marked yet another solid advance by the community banking industry in its ongoing campaign for common-sense regulations.