Washington, D.C. (Oct. 6, 2025) — The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) expressed strong support for today’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announcement of a series of regulatory relief measures aimed at empowering community banks to continue serving their customers and communities.
“ICBA and the nation’s community bankers commend the OCC for today’s announcement on the meaningful steps it is taking to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens on community banks, which recognizes the outsized impact of community bank lending on the U.S. economy,” ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said. “Today’s actions are a great first step and reflect a thoughtful and proportionate approach to regulation and supervision that recognizes the unique role community banks serve in supporting local economies.”
The OCC’s announcement includes several key reforms:
Return to Risk-Based Supervision: Elimination of fixed examination requirements in favor of a risk-based approach, ensuring that supervisory expectations align with actual institutional risk.
Simplified Oversight of Retail Nondeposit Investment Products: Using the core assessment standards in the Community Bank Supervision booklet of the Comptroller’s Handbook to streamline the examination process for these products.
Tailored Model Risk Management: Clarification that model validation requirements do not require community banks to perform annual model validations.
Licensing Reform: A proposed rule to automatically deem community banks with less than $30 billion in total assets as “covered institutions” in relation to licensing requirements, expediting licensing processes such as branch applications.
Fair Housing Data System Rescission: A proposed rule to eliminate legacy fair housing data-collection systems.
“In addition to expediting these important reforms, we also appreciate the work OCC is doing to move ICBA-advocated initiatives such as community bank leverage ratio reform and a simplified process for Community Reinvestment Act compliance,” Romero Rainey said. “ICBA looks forward to continuing to work with the OCC and other regulators on these critical reforms.”
Today’s OCC announcement advancing tiered and proportionate regulations that will help ensure community banks continue to meet the needs of local communities aligns with ICBA’s “Repair, Reform, and Thrive” plan and open letter to the 119th Congress.
About ICBA
The Independent Community Bankers of America® has one mission: to create and promote an environment where community banks flourish. We power the potential of the nation’s community banks through effective advocacy, education, and innovation.
As local and trusted sources of credit, America’s community banks leverage their relationship-based business model and innovative offerings to channel deposits into the neighborhoods they serve, creating jobs, fostering economic prosperity, and fueling their customers’ financial goals and dreams. For more information, visit ICBA’s website at icba.org.