WASHINGTON—More than 100 community bankers and staff from the Independent Community Bankers of America met with President Trump here, presenting him with a red cap reading “Make Community Banking Great Again” as part of the event.
The ICBA bankers also met with other top administration officials at the White House, including Vice President Mike Pence, NEC Director Gary Cohn, and Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon. Trump told the group the administration is focused on addressing regulatory burdens to help community banks lend to small businesses.
More than 1,000 community bankers are in Washington this week for ICBA’s Capital Summit. As CUToday.info reported here, the bankers have identified a number of regulatory priorities, one of which is repealing the credit union tax exemption.
Separately, the ICBA’s longtime CEO, Camden R. Fine, announced plans to retire in May 2018. Concurrent with his retirement announcement, ICBA Chairman Scott Heitkamp, president and CEO of ValueBank Texas, announced that the ICBA Executive Committee has named Rebecca Romero Rainey, a third-generation community banker, as Fine’s successor. Romero Rainey is owner, chairman and CEO of Centinel Bank of Taos, N.M., and ICBA immediate past chairman.
Fine, a native Missourian and longtime community banker and bank owner before coming to ICBA in May 2003, announced to more than 1,000 bankers at the 2017 ICBA Capital Summit that he would step down on his 15th anniversary on May 5, 2018. Fine emphasized that he will remain fully engaged as ICBA CEO over the next year.
Romero Rainey has served ICBA and the community banking industry for more than 15 years. She is ICBA’s immediate past chairman and has held the positions of chairman of the Federal Delegate Board and of the Minority Bank Council. She has served on the FDIC Community Bank Advisory Committee and the Kansas City Federal Reserve Community Depository Institution Advisory Council. At the state level, she is the past president and a current board member of the Independent Community Bankers of New Mexico and has received the New Mexico Governor’s award for Outstanding Women.