Oklahoma Bankers Association We make bankers better!
It’s been almost three weeks since nearly 100 bankers made the trek to Washington D.C. for the OBA’s Annual Visit.
We were able to meet with most of our federal regulators, and we were fortunate enough to hear from every member of the Oklahoma delegation.
I always love how we go into our Washington Visit with an agenda, and what we spend the most of our time discussing wasn’t even near the top of the list. Looking back on all our discussions, there were some common themes: fraud, the status of Acting Chairman of the FDIC Travis Hill and increasing the CTR threshold.
Unfortunately, fraud is always a popular topic when we go to Washington. We reinforced with all our regulators we must find a way to get the telecoms to the table.
We emphasized the amount of fraud being committed by spoofing phone numbers, which is an easy way for folks to think their bank is calling and asking for private information.
We can do all we can on our end to educate the consumer, but if the telecoms would get involved, this would make an immediate impact.
Acting Chairman of the FDIC Travis Hill was great as he laid out all the things that have been accomplished in his short time at the helm. Oklahoma Banking Commissioner Mick Thompson commented that Chairman Hill has accomplished more in the last six months than his predecessor did in years.
Our ask is that Acting Chairman Hill needs to be confirmed by the Senate. We brought this up with our delegation and they strongly agreed. Our House members don’t have a say in the process, but our senators are strong supporters of Hill.
On Oct. 1, President Trump officially nominated Hill to be the next chairman of the FDIC. Now that he has been nominated, the confirmation process can, hopefully, start within the Senate.
He’ll first have to be approved by the Senate Banking Committee. Should that happen, he’ll then have to be confirmed by the entire Senate.
I don’t see that Hill will have any major hurdles, but the hardest part of this process is how long it could take. It might be weeks or months before he is confirmed and officially becomes the chairman of the FDIC.
The other issue in Washington that was very popular was increasing the CTR threshold from it’s current number of $10,000.
The current threshold was established in 1972 by the Treasury and hasn’t been adjusted since then. If you used the standard inflation calculator, the inflation-adjusted threshold would be between $75,000 and $170,000, depending on certain calculations.
Nobody we talked with was opposed to this adjustment, but the issue lies with law enforcement. I remember years ago we worked with Sen. Inhofe on this issue and we couldn’t make any headway because of law enforcement. Law enforcement doesn’t want to increase the threshold for obvious reasons, with the main one being the higher the number, the harder it is to gather information for investigations.
I truly believe we can make progress on this issue, but it might take a while. Still, I’m a believer that we can get an adjustment.
If you weren’t able to join us on this year’s visit, I would strongly encourage you to join us next year. We are shooting for 125 bankers in 2026, and you need to be one of them!