Pub. 6 2018 Issue 2

6 The Community Banker www.mibonline.org W elcome to our post-state convention edition of the Community Banker. I write this piece on the heels of the close of our 2018 event. Our convention was held in Missoula at the Hilton Garden Inn this year. The venue and the Missoula location proved to be a hit as we had over 165 people attend the convention. This was our largest convention in terms of registrations for more than a decade. As such, on behalf of the MIB Board and its officers, let me extend my deepest appreciation to those of you who attended the convention, to those of you who sponsored our convention, and to those of you who participated in our annual trade show. Truly, without your support, our convention would not be the special event it always is. Our convention theme this year was ‘TAG, you are it’ – yes, based on the childhood game of the same name. Why did we choose this as our theme? It is because we were honored to have Brian Dennehy, Expert Vice President with Bain Capital, and an actual star of the recently released major motion picture TAG, as our featured speaker. Based on the fact that Brian and his friends have been playing a continuous game of tag since they were childhood friends, it seemed appropriate for the MIB to join in the fun. During our gala dinner on Saturday night, convention attend- ee was tagged ‘it’ by Brian and, as a result, he/ she won a free registration to next year’s state convention, which will be held at the Copper King Inn in Butte in July 2019. In addition to having our own game of tag, the convention featured an opportunity for our attendees to walk the red carpet and to have their photo taken by a professional photographer while wearing their finest duds. This year’s convention was truly a special event, and it gave our Montana community bankers and our partners an opportunity to learn, celebrate, and network together as community bankers. You will find herein a photo montage from the convention, which I trust you will enjoy. The successful state convention followed on the heels of a successful legislative and policy advocacy trip to Washington, D.C. In late, April, several MIB board and association members traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate in ICBA’s annual Capital Summit. During the summit, MIB met personally with our entire Congressional delegation. As a result, we were able to communicate directly to our congressional delegation the need for immediate community banking regulatory re- lief. Our message was that Congress needed to immediately pass S. 2155, a bill to provide some reform to the Dodd-Frank Act and to provide some much-needed regulatory reform to banks with less than $250 billion in assets. Our advocacy efforts and messaging were successful. I am pleased to write that on May 24th, 2018, President Trump signed this legislation into law. This bipartisan legislation, which was championed by Montana Senator Jon Tester, raises the threshold at which banks are subject to various forms of federal oversight, such as stress tests. The bill raises the SIFI threshold from $50 billion to $250 billion. Further, the bill will classify certain mortgages held by lenders with $10 billion and under as ‘qualified mortgages,’ which would allow smaller asset size banks to expand their mort- gage operations. The bill also eases certain appraisal requirements and eliminates escrow requirements for banks under $10 billion. Passage of this legislation was a big win for Montana’s community banks, MIB and MIB’s national organization, ICBA, as the FDIC has determined that community banks are four times more likely to operate in rural counties than larger asset institutions. You will also find enclosed herein a summary of the provi- sions contained in this important community bank reform legislation. Touching now on the member services side of the Association, I am pleased to write that the Community Banking Program initiated by the MIB at Montana State University – Boze- man is into its second successful year. As the Executive Director’s Report