OBA News

The Latest

June 2025

  • June 11, 2025

    FDIC issues regulatory relief guidance for Oklahoma, other states

    The FDIC released guidance on Monday with steps intended to provide regulatory relief to financial institutions and facilitate recovery in seven states recently affected by natural disasters, including the wildfires in Oklahoma earlier in the spring. The agency encouraged banks in affected areas to work constructively with borrowers experiencing difficulties, including extending repayment terms, restructuring existing loans or easing terms …

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  • June 4, 2025

    ABA, OBA, other state bankers associations oppose credit card rate caps to bill

    In a letter to the Senate late last month, the American Bankers Association, the OBA and 51 other state bankers associations expressed strong opposition to any effort to attach the 10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act as a poison-pill amendment to the unrelated GENIUS Act or any other legislative vehicle. The associations outlined why the legislation, which would …

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May 2025

  • May 27, 2025

    OBA updates large withdrawal questionnaire, guidance

    We first published this large withdrawal questionnaire and guidance in December 2024 and numerous member banks have since adopted use of these documents when they felt their customer was being victimized by a scam. With input from some of those users, we’ve made a few updates, which you can download in the links above. We’d also like to share a …

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  • May 21, 2025

    Report: Limiting credit card interchange fees would harm consumers

    Legislation intended to reduce credit card interchange fees would lead to less access to credit and disproportionately harming low-income households because of reduced revenue for community banks and credit unions, according to a recently published academic report. The Credit Card Competition Act by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) would impose new network routing mandates on financial institutions …

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  • May 14, 2025

    OBA installs Ada banker as chair; honors others at annual convention

    OKLAHOMA CITY — Steve Bagwell, president and CEO of Vision Bank, in Ada, was inducted as chair of the Oklahoma Bankers Association at the OBA’s 128th Convention on Wednesday, May 14, at the Skirvin Hilton in Oklahoma City. Bagwell is a 1987 graduate of Baylor University with a bachelor’s degree in economics. He has also completed graduate work in planning …

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Jeremy Cowen

Jeremy Cowen, Senior Vice President/Communications

Email: jeremy@oba.com      |      Phone: Ext. 113

Jeremy has been in charge of the Oklahoma Banker newspaper as well as the OBA website and other member communications since joining the OBA in January 2002. A native of Hartshorne and a 1997 graduate of the University of Oklahoma, he enjoys meeting and talking with the different people he encounters while doing his job. Previously, Jeremy worked as a sports writer in Lawton and, for the four years prior to joining the OBA, Lubbock, Texas, where he decided the town wasn’t big enough for both him and Bobby Knight. When not working, Jeremy loves to hike, read, watch football, baseball and boxing and teach journalism to high school and college students. And, if you ask, there’s a good chance he will regale you with the story about being interviewed on ESPN by Chris Fowler.