The Independent Community Bankers of America released its new plan for the incoming Congress and the Trump administration on Tuesday.
The plan, titled “Repair, Reform and Thrive” addresses the country’s banking regulations and aims to kickstart growth in local communities. The new Congress and presidential administration provides opportunities to make improvements to the financial services policies and to implement reforms the association said would help community banks face coming challenges.
“ICBA and the nation’s community bankers recognize the magnitude of the opportunity we face in 2025 to make needed changes to excessively burdensome banking regulations that will amplify the positive economic impact of community banks across America,” ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said. “Our ‘Repair, Reform, and Thrive’ plan will ensure economic growth and prosperity reaches everyone, including the local communities, consumers, and small businesses that community banks serve in good times and bad. We look forward to working closely with the new Trump administration and 119th Congress to implement these critical reforms.”
In an open letter to the incoming 119th Congress, ICBA laid out its plan to address the more than 5,000 pages of new regulations for banks implemented in recent years. The new plan offers a regulatory and legislative agenda to fix the broken regulations it said harms communities, while helping locally-based banking thrive and grow.
The association said its plan covered ways to address unnecessary and excessively burdensome regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other agencies, leveling the tax and regulatory playing field with credit unions, industrial loan companies and the Farm Credit System; implementing tax policies to support market growth and competition, and eliminating obstacles to new bank formation, among others.