WASHINGTON–The credit union trade groups are hardly alone in pressing regulators to provide more regulatory relief.
The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) has told the Federal Financial Institution’s Examination Council (FFIEC) that while it appreciates its proposal to create a separate call report for certain community banks, the end result would have little or no impact on these locally based institutions and the communities they serve.
“Simply put, the current call reporting burden facilitates the consumption of vital bank resources, time, and money that should be reallocated to serving the community,” ICBA wrote in a letter to regulators, joining more than 3,000 community bankers who submitted comments. “We implore the FFIEC to take real action now by introducing the short-form call report as soon as possible as a first step in stopping the madness of regulatory overreach.”
The ICBA said that in response to years of advocacy by itself and community bankers the FFIEC proposed a revised call report for community banks with less than $1 billion in assets.
“This updated call report includes fewer required data items for these community banks to report, with the goal of easing the regulatory burden on these less-complex institutions,” the ICBA said. “Unfortunately, the data items to be removed generally do not apply to community banks anyway, offering little or no relief.
Instead, the ICBA said it and community bankers are calling on regulators to implement a short-form call report that community banks would file in the first and third quarters of each year.
“These truly streamlined reports would only include vital financial information to roll back the paperwork mandates on community banks, while local institutions would continue to submit complete call reports in the second and fourth quarters of each year,” the ICBA said. “This would provide information needed by regulators while allowing community banks to return critical staff resources to serving the needs of their customers and communities.”
The ICBA said the call report has grown from approximately 80 pages of forms and 670 pages of instructions.