Tuesday, August 4, 2026
We make bankers better!

Week of Aug. 3

August 4, 2026

In This Issue…

From Adrian’s desk …

By Adrian Beverage
OBA President & CEO

Just some random tidbits that might be of interest to our bankers this week!

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I watched the gubernatorial debate between Gentner Drummond and Mike Mazzei last night. I won’t try to tell anyone whom to vote for, but I will tell you to GET OUT AND VOTE! Oklahoma has one of the worst voter turnouts in the country, and run-offs are notorious for even lighter turnouts.

This is an incredibly important race to the future of our state. If you’re a registered Republican, make sure you get to the polls three weeks from today!

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We issued an OK Banker Direct on Monday concerning the stablecoin loophole and how we hope to encourage our senators to close it. If you haven’t had a chance yet, take a quick minute to send an automatically generated email to both Sen. Lankford and Sen. Armstrong about this issue.

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The MLB trade deadline hit on Monday and, for what it’s worth, I’m happy with what my Cubbies accomplished … much happier than my co-worker Jeremy is about what his Braves did (or more accurately, DIDN’T do.) Of course, seeing what the Dodgers pulled off, it might all be moot in the end.

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OBA urges FCC to increase role in halting telecommunications fraud

The OBA is currently discussing with its congressional delegation about the importance of the FCC stepping into a more active role in stopping telecommunications-enabled fraud.

Telecommunications fraud — robocalls, spoofed caller ID, and bank/agency impersonation — is no longer a nuisance; it is a primary vector for financial crime hitting Oklahoma consumers and the community banks that serve them.

  • Americans received roughly 2 billion robocalls in a single recent month — about 13 per person, or 1,600 calls every second.
  • Imposter scams — many originating by phone or text — cost U.S. consumers over $3.5 billion in reported losses in 2025; robotexts are now the single most common contact method scammers use.
  • Unwanted and fraudulent calls remain the FCC’s own top consumer complaint year after year.
  • Bank and financial-institution impersonation is a growing sub-category — the FCC itself has recently taken action against providers transmitting Walmart- and bank-impersonation robocalls — but community banks are left absorbing reimbursement costs and reputational damage while the underlying call traffic keeps flowing.
  • Community banks and their customers — including the roughly 170 community banks in Oklahoma — are frequent impersonation targets; every fraudulent “your account is locked” call or text erodes trust in legitimate bank communications and shifts real cost onto banks and consumers.
  • Rural and elderly Oklahomans are disproportionately targeted and disproportionately harmed by successful scams.

While the FCC has made some moves to help mitigate some of these issues, we’d like to see more help. Some of the recommendations we’d like to see the FCC implement include:

  • Finalize — don’t just propose — the pending numbering-resource and foreign call center rules, on a fixed timeline, notwithstanding industry objections.
  • Close the foreign origination gap through binding agreements or blocking authority for gateway providers that fail to stop known bad international traffic.
  • Formal coordination with the FTC, Treasury/FinCEN, and bank regulators specifically on financial-institution impersonation, so telecom-level blocking and bank-level fraud reporting are linked rather than siloed.
  • Use forfeiture authority aggressively now that the Supreme Court has confirmed it, with penalties sized to deter repeat and foreign-linked violators, not just small domestic providers.
  • Public timeline and reporting on the March 2026 NPRMs so Congress and industry can track whether “proposed” becomes “final.”

While the OBA will continue to talk with our representative and senators in Washington, it would also be of assistance if our bankers became involved. We hope you will take the time to urge the FCC to strengthen some of their standards.

We will keep you apprised of this issue in the coming weeks and months.

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OCC offers new requirements for releasing confidential data

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is proposing to restructure its processes for making bank information available for public review, according to an agency announcement.

The proposed rulemaking seeks to strike a better balance between public disclosure and protecting confidential information collected as part of agency supervision, the OCC said. The proposal comes less than a month after the OCC and other banking agencies jointly announced a “coordinated approach” for handling sensitive information used in bank examinations.

Among the proposed changes, the OCC would formally define “confidential supervisory information” and allow regulated entities to publicly share that information without first notifying the agency, as long as certain conditions are met. The proposal would also expedite how the OCC handles Freedom of Information requests, and it would set a 25-year time limit under which information may no longer be subject to heightened confidentiality standards.

Comments on the proposal are due 60 days following publication in the Federal Register.  The FDIC has proposed a similar rule, with an Aug. 31 deadline for public comment.

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First Friday Fraud Forum on tap this week

Calling all fraud fighters – mark your calendar for 10 a.m. Friday!

In an attempt to communicate fraud trends to our member banks in all areas of the state, we hold monthly “First Friday Fraud Forum” virtual meetings via Zoom. These meetings are for OBA members only. We will cover information on the latest fraud trends affecting our banks.

For this Friday’s call, click here for the Zoom link. The Meeting ID is 839 1878 5238 and the passcode is 911385. The dial-in information for those without Zoom audio is 1-346-248-7799

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Oklahoma Bankers Hall of Fame accepting nominations for 2026 inductions

The Oklahoma Bankers Hall of Fame is now accepting nominations for the upcoming 2026 class; additionally, a reminder the process of selecting inductees was updated a few years back.

First, for those interested in nominating a banker, here are some downloadable forms linked below – please return all nominations to Adrian Beverage (adrian@oba.com):

If a person was nominated previously, it is not necessary to re-nominate them – they will remain in consideration. Updates to their bio, letters of recommendation, etc., however, are always welcomed.

Second, as mentioned, a new process for selecting the inductees to each class was instituted in 2023. After discussion with leadership at the Oklahoma Hall of Fame about its processes, and learning about other methods from other organizations, the induction procedure for the Oklahoma Bankers Hall of Fame has been updated.

After all nominations have been received by OBA President and CEO Adrian Beverage, he will forward those nominees to the OBA chair (currently, Priscilla Cude), who will convene a committee of 11 individuals in September to select the inductees. These 11 individuals will be made up of the OBA’s Executive Committee, who will join a banker selected by the OBA chair from each of the OBA’s six geographical groups, as well as the chair of the OBA Emerging Leaders Division. The specific committee members will be completely anonymous to everyone outside of the current OBA chair.

These committee members will select the final inductees from the group of nominees given. They will also discuss any possible posthumous inductees who may have not been nominated.

Once the inductees have been selected, the OBA chair will inform Beverage and notification and preparations will be made by the OBA staff for the induction ceremony, which will be held this year in December at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City.

Following the 2026 selections, the current selection committee will immediately disband and a new committee will be picked the following year by the next OBA chair. Aside from the OBA chair and executive committee, the selection committee will remain anonymous with only the other committee members from that specific year knowing their identities.

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Save the date: OBA convention, senior management events set for 2027

Mark your calendars as the OBA Convention and OBA Senior Management dates and location have already been set for next year!

The 2027 OBA Convention will be held May 24-26, back at the Okana Resort, in Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, the 2027 OBA Senior Management Conference will be held on April 4-6 at the Westin Kierland Resort, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

More details will be available in the coming months, but go ahead and get those notes on your calendar today!

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OBA education corner …

Well, we survived last week’s heat wave … only to look up and see all the triple digits forecasted for the next week! OK, so, welcome to August in Oklahoma! While trying to stay cool, make sure to keep up with what’s happening on the continuing education front, including the following:

  • Mortgage Servicing Compliance Requirements and Updates – 2-Part Series, Aug. 10/Aug. 12, webinar — An in-depth discussion of the legal and regulatory requirements of servicing consumer mortgage loans, including when loans are current as well as when the borrower is delinquent or in default.
  • 2026 Opening New Accounts, Documentation & Compliance Seminars, Aug. 12-Tulsa; Aug. 13-Oklahoma City — Unfortunately, new account personnel are too often trained “on the job,” which results in an environment of potential vulnerability and unnecessary losses for the bank. This full-day program is one of the country’s most comprehensive seminars on opening deposit accounts.
  • Effectively Managing Wire Transfer Fraud, Aug. 13, webinar — Wire transfers remain one of the most common methods used by scammers.
  • Teller Training – 4-Part Series, Aug. 13/Aug. 20/Sept. 3/Sept. 10, webinar — We will tell you the why behind many of the things we do at the teller line.
  • Appraisal Review Workshop, Aug. 14, webinar — Appraisals are a key element of any loan decision as they truly depict the market valuation at the time of the loan.
  • Community Bank HMDA Workshop, Aug. 18, webinar — How does your community bank handle HMDA data reporting?
  • 2026 FDIC Banker Outreach, Aug. 27, Oklahoma City — Sessions will be tailored to directors, risk management and consumer compliance staff to bring participants up to date on current economic trends and regulatory issues.
  • Consumer Collections 101, Aug. 31, webinar — This presentation will discuss the brave new world of consumer collections and how best to navigate the current challenges facing lenders so that you can effectively resolve delinquent and charged off accounts.

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