Tioga State Bank president and CEO addresses Congress on community bank regulations

Robert Fisher, the president and CEO of Tioga State Bank, testified in Congress on Tuesday on behalf of legislation to establish a more efficient financial regulatory regime that he said would strengthen local economic growth and job creation.

Speaking on behalf of the Independent Community Bankers of America, Fisher spoke to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit to express the organization's support for several bills to promote tiered and community banking regulations, a news release stated.

“Community banks didn’t cause the financial crisis, and we should not bear the weight of overreaching regulation intended to address it,” Fisher said. “ICBA is strongly encouraged by recent, bipartisan momentum for community bank regulatory relief from both sides of the capitol, and we are optimistic that meaningful relief will soon be signed into law.” 

The fifth-generation community banker advocated four bills that include provisions recommended in what the Independent Community Bankers of America has called its pro-growth "Plan for Prosperity" regulatory relief platform, the media release stated. 

The bills he advocated for were the Community Financial Institution Exemption Act (H.R. 1264), the Home Mortgage Reporting Relief Act of 2017 (H.R. 4648), the Community Bank Reporting Relief Act (H.R. 4725) and the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act (S. 2155).

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Introduced by Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, the Community Financial Institution Exemption Act (H.R. 1264), would exempt community banks with less than $50 billion in assets from all prospective rules and regulations issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the news release stated. The Home Mortgage Reporting Relief Act of 2017 (H.R. 4648), introduced by Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., would provide temporary enforcement relief from new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data collection and reporting requirements and restrict the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability to make the new data publicly available.

The Community Bank Reporting Relief Act (H.R. 4725), also introduced by Rep. Hultgren, would provide for short-form call reports in the first and third quarters for banks with assets of less than $5 billion, the release stated. According to officials, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act (S. 2155), bipartisan legislation that has passed the Senate Banking Committee on a bipartisan vote, would provide robust community bank regulatory relief to strengthen economic growth and job creation.

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