From Washington D.C.

Rebeca Romero Rainey
President and CEO, ICBA

Your advocacy impact

“Every phone call we make to our members of Congress, every trip to Capitol Hill and every letter we send falls on open ears and has an impact.”

Sometimes in life, we’re fortunate enough to see our labor yield results, and that’s precisely what’s been happening with our advocacy efforts. The first quarter of 2025 has boasted great successes for community banking, including:

We saw congressional efforts to overturn the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 1071 and overdraft rules. ICBA-supported legislation introduced by House Committee on Small Business chairman Roger Williams (R-Texas) would repeal the statute that underlies the CFPB’s Section 1071 rule, while Senate Banking Committee chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and House Financial Services Committee chairman French Hill (R-Ark.) have introduced ICBA-backed Congressional Review Act resolutions to overturn the CFPB’s overdraft rule.

• The first House Financial Services Committee hearing of the year focused solely on community banking. At the “Make Community Banking Great Again” hearing, I was able to testify and highlight policy proposals from our “Repair, Reform and Thrive” advocacy plan.
• The first House Committee on Small Business hearing of the year focused on small business lending. At the “Hope on the Horizon” hearing, ICBA chairman-elect Alice Frazier—president and CEO of Bank of Charles Town, in Charles Town, W.Va.—encouraged policymakers to pass chairman Roger Williams’ 1071 Repeal to Protect Small Business Lending Act, preserve and expand a pro-growth tax environment by extending Section 199A of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for pass-through business, and more.

Moments like these affirm the importance of community banking to our nation’s economy and in the halls of Congress. We need to keep this momentum, driving forward the issues of right-sized regulation, a level regulatory playing field and flexibility to support our communities.

Now more than ever, our successes serve as a call to action: Every phone call we make to our members of Congress, every trip to Capitol Hill and every letter we send falls on open ears and has an impact. We must maintain continued and persistent engagement to ensure our issues remain a priority in today’s legislative landscape.

With that in mind, I hope you will join us for Capital Summit taking place May 12–15 in Washington, D.C. When we come together on Capitol Hill, it demonstrates to members of Congress just how serious we are about advancing community banking for the betterment of their districts and our communities, and we need your voice.

Hard work is what it takes to achieve results. And with more hard work on our part, the rest of the year will just get better for community banking.

Storytelling, marketing, differentiation: Conceptually, they all make sense, but with each comes a question of, “Now what?” The answer falls in how we apply our stories to cut through the noise of today’s financial services landscape and resonate with our audiences.

That’s why ICBA has launched our ICBA Marketing Resource Center . From search engine optimization tips and ready-to-go segments to produced materials that can be customized for your institution, the resources we’ve provided not only offer information on marketing concepts but deliver the tools to highlight what’s unique about our industry and your bank. And the work continues: We are committed to making this center evergreen, providing new resources as opportunities arise.

Our unique value proposition makes us second to none, and with our collective efforts, we will drive home that message and the community bank difference.