Pub. 6 2011-2012 Issue 4

November/December 2011 13 Extraordinary Service for Extraordinary Members. Nebraska banks will be able to access the tool through a link embedded in an e-mail from the NBA. To begin the process, we hope every bank will provide feedback on its most recent safety and soundness and compliance exam or visitation regardless of when it occurred. After that initial database is built, we will ask banks to use the tool after each future exam or visitation. We have met with representatives of the FDIC, OCC, and Federal Reserve, and to their credit they seem to welcome the input. They know their job is getting more difficult and that their processes are not perfect. We are hopeful that a little transparency will provide some subtle checks and balances in an otherwise one-sided regulatory process. Even a slight shift in this balance could yield significant returns for our local economies and our member banks as we emerge from the recent economic crisis and assimilate the new regulatory challenges in Dodd-Frank. Z Reach Frank Keating by e-mail at fkeating@aba.com. Kendell Holthus is chairman of the Nebraska Bankers Association and executive vice president of Cornerstone Bank in York, Neb. Reach him by e-mail at kholthus@cornerstoneconnect.com . Q Over-Regulated — continued will make serving local municipalities unattractive for community banks. • Derivatives Rules. New derivatives rules will make it much more expensive for banks to offset their loan expo- sures to customers, industries, lines of business, interest rates, credit default, and other risks through the use of derivatives. • Doubling Size of theDeposit Insurance Fund. Under Dodd-Frank Act authorities, the FDIC has announced plans to double the size of the DIF, taking as much as $50 billion out of the earnings and capital of the industry. We’re working to target Dodd-Frank’s enormous regulatory over-reaction. As I said during one recent radio interview, the ever-growing regulatory burden hurts com- munity banks that lend to Main Street. “If the institution shuts its doors just because they simply can’t respond to this burden, the whole thing ends.” Z