By Terry J. Jorde

Congratulations, community bankers! This week we saw once again that our industry’s hard work and determination on behalf of regulatory relief can achieve tangible results in Washington.

Following passionate advocacy from ICBA and community bankers, regulators issued a proposed rule to simplify community bank call reports and laid out their plan for considering additional reporting relief in the coming months. While there is still a long way to go to get the relief we’ve advocated, this announcement is an important first step in one of our top-priority regulatory relief initiatives. And it is due exclusively to the community bankers who have stood up and demanded change.

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), which is made up of all of the bank regulatory agencies, this week issued the first part of their plan, which would delete certain data items and revise reporting thresholds. More important, however, is the council’s pledge to evaluate the creation of a streamlined quarterly call report for community banks and to continue its dialogue with our industry. This promise is a big win for community banks because it could ultimately lead to our goal—a shorter, less burdensome and more sensible call report, which is a key element in ICBA’s overall regulatory relief strategy.

Lest you think the regulators came up with this idea out of thin air, it is important to understand that getting to this point has required education, patience and diplomacy. And our work is far from over. But make no mistake about it, any success we achieve on this front has a very specific source—community bankers and their ICBA team in Washington!

The announcement comes one year—almost to the day—after ICBA leadership met with the FFIEC in our offices and delivered a petition with nearly 15,000 signatures representing almost 2,500 community banks urging call report relief. The ICBA petition, which we spent a month collecting signatures on last year, was inspired by a broad industry survey, in which we found the annual cost of preparing the call report has increased for 86 percent of respondents over the past 10 years. Further, 98 percent of respondents said a short-form call report would reduce their regulatory burden, and 72 percent said the reduction would be “substantial.” Banks under $500 million told us they spent on average 122 hours per year on the call report, while preparation time for banks greater than $500 million jumped to an average of 274 hours per year!

Having real community bankers on ICBA’s staff—those who have actually prepared the quarterly call report—helps the association understand first-hand the burden it poses to Main Street institutions. ICBA’s experienced team of dedicated staff has heard the industry’s calls for reform loud and clear and has taken that message directly to the regulators. And to their credit, the regulators are listening and have acted upon the industry’s call to action. But the real credit for this crucial step forward goes to the thousands of community bankers who answered surveys, signed petitions, wrote letters, spoke up at EGRPRA meetings and hosted regulators in their banks to personally show them the burden of call report preparation.

ICBA is in this for the duration and will continue working with regulators to maximize call report relief for community banks. But for now, I say kudos to community bankers. Thank you for your efforts to achieve positive results in the face of arduous regulatory hurdles. And never forget that you are capable of making real change in Washington through your hard work, determination and dedication to doing what’s right for communities across this great nation.