Pub. 13 2018-2019 Issue 2

WWW.NEBANKERS.ORG 8 WASHINGTON UPDATE S. 2155: NOW FOR THE JUST-AS-HARD PART Rob Nichols, President & CEO, American Bankers Association P RIOR TOMAY 24, 2018, BANKERSMAY HAVE HAD A HARD TIME REMEMBERING what a big win in Congress looked like. It’s true that in the past year we saw important progress with the enactment of historic tax reform and the overturning of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s arbitration rule. Though, substantial regulatory reform had been elusive for a decade. That changed when Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R- Idaho) committed to crafting a bipartisan bill that recalibrates banking rules to allow banks to better serve their customers, clients and communities. Crapo’s distinct bipartisan approach, plus roughly 19,000 banker visits toWashington and tens of thousands of emails and calls to lawmakers over the past eight yea-rs, changed everything. The result is S. 2155, the first positive, bipartisan regulatory reform bill to be signed into law in years. This occasion is worth noting not because S. 2155 contains everything banks want and need in order to fully serve their customers; it doesn’t. But the law suggests that the era of indiscriminately heapingmore rules on banks has ended and a new era of better tailored regulation is settling in. It also recognizes that banks play an essential role in helping their customers, communities and the This occasion is worth noting not because S. 2155 contains everything banks want and need in order to fully serve their customers; it doesn’t.