WASHINGTON–The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) is panning the CFPB’s outline of proposals to implement small-business loan data collection and reporting rules.
"Community banks are the unequivocal leaders of the U.S. economic recovery due to their outsized role as providers of Paycheck Protection Program loans to our nation’s small businesses,” President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said in a statement. “Unfortunately for local communities, today's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposal to apply small-business data collection and reporting mandates to community banks would undermine this critical relationship-based banking model, which has supported small businesses throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
"ICBA appreciates that the CFPB proposal would exempt community banks with $100 million to $200 million in assets, but we continue calling on the bureau to exercise its authority to fully exempt community banks,” Romero Rainey continued. “Mandatory data collection and reporting is entirely inconsistent with the non-homogenous nature of community bank small-business loans—many of which have been a lifeline to entrepreneurs and their employees during this pandemic. Further, it would impose new and costly burdens on community banks, limiting access to badly needed credit for small businesses at the worst possible time.”