By Camden R. Fine, President and CEO of ICBA

Consider it a modern Newtonian banking principle of action and overreaction. For every arrogant, boneheaded or downright abusive misdeed by a megabank that’s uncovered, count on a disproportionately excessive and convoluted response from Washington, D.C. Though driven by manmade institutions rather than nature’s forces, this phenomenon has proven widely predictable over the years. It’s also a negative regulatory feedback loop caused by the rise of the too-big-to-fail financial Frankensteins themselves.

As a community banker in West Virginia, I would hope the furthest thing from my mind would be Wall Street. Like all community bankers, I’ve got plenty of other things to keep me busy—meeting with local customers and small-business owners, lending within my community of Franklin, W.Va., conferring with employees of the bank, dealing with regulators—the list goes on. But these are things that come with being a community banker. It’s part of the job, but I wake up wanting to fulfill this responsibility every morning because I know I’m making a difference in people’s lives.

By Shazia Manus

Community banks know their customers better than the larger banks against which they compete. This comes from a longstanding tradition of over-and-above service and the building of personal relationships whenever possible. However, as consumer preferences evolve and as customers spend far more hours driving by branches than visiting them, those relationship dynamics are changing.

Looking past the hype of fee income

By Dan Shannon

Recent regulatory changes, such as the Durbin Amendment and Regulation E, have caused financial institutions to re-evaluate their practices for sustaining revenue growth. While many community banks have addressed the challenge of maintaining their revenue streams by relying on noninterest fee income, they also have realized that a return to focusing on the fundamentals of interest income, their most important source of revenue, has become increasingly important.

By Camden R. Fine, President and CEO of ICBA

As I’ve said and written before, relieving the regulatory tsunami drowning community banks is Job No. 1 for ICBA. Quite simply, no priority is more urgent for ICBA than reversing the rising tide of costly, unnecessary and counterproductive regulations.

So with all of its energy and resources, ICBA is addressing this issue every day, both on the regulatory front lines and on Capitol Hill. No issue can have a more positive influence on the daily operations of community banks—and on achieving a full economic recovery for Main Street and all of America—than cutting back regulatory overkill. All of you know this all too well, firsthand.

In high school, I had a part-time job, just like so many other young people. But instead of working at the local hardware store or as a busboy at the mom-and-pop diner down on Main Street, I was a janitor at Cardinal State Bank in Beckley, W.Va.

Little did I know that this first humble job would lead me to my life’s passion and calling—community banking.