What Rep. Nunn said to bankers

Congressman Nunn Thanks & Briefs Friends of Traditional Banking

Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA), member of the House Financial Services Committee, held an exclusive visit with Friends of Traditional Banking leadership recently. He thanked FOTB for helping to make a key difference in his close race last year. “Thanks not only for the financial support, but also for the real-world stories from you bankers that help me hold others accountable in our Financial Services Committee,” he said. “America’s community banks are the lifeblood of this country, and FOTB recognizes this as much as anyone,” he said.

Rep. Nunn noted that he was working on cutting red tape and increasing capital flow to our Main Street businesses. Local banks matter, he noted, saying “Hometown guys deliver for hometown communities.”

He also spoke of the work they are doing on House Financial Services with lowering the threshold to get financing, pointing to the Rural Housing Act as an important way to help first-time homebuyers. Rep. Nunn also told of doing battle with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and their “over regulation, high fines, high fees, and enforcement by fiat.”

Politically, Rep. Nunn warned that if he and his Republican colleagues are not there after the midterms, the Maxine Waters leadership team will rule and be a nightmare for the American economy. In a competitive D+1 district himself, the Congressman noted that some of his other colleagues will be in tight races next year and may also need FOTB’s help, including Reps. Juan Ciscomani (AZ), Young Kim (CA), and Monica De La Cruz (TX).

What is Friends of Traditional Banking (FOTB)?

We are a non-partisan grassroots effort, organized by bankers. We are Main Street, not Wall Street; we are traditional community bankers, not investment bankers.

There are over 30,000 of us from coast to coast (including YOU!). There is no cost to be on the list for FOTB, and we won't spam you (just this monthly newsletter).

We choose two or three Congressional races each cycle that are hypercritical to banking, and encourage our membership to donate directly to those campaigns.

We're the inverse of a PAC--instead of spreading a little bit of money to a lot of campaigns, we focus a lot of money on a couple of key campaigns. These money bombs WORK. We encourage our members to support the PACs run by ICBA, ABA, and their local state associations. All are important arrows in the quiver of the banking industry, and all of these help shape Washington in different ways!

Connecticut's Mongellow Named to FOTB Executive Committee

Thomas Mongellow has been appointed to the Executive Committee of Friends of Traditional Banking, bringing his depth of experience to the organization’s highest governing body. Previously, Tom had represented Connecticut on FOTB’s Advisory Council.

Tom is President & Chief Executive Officer of the Connecticut Bankers Association (CBA), the trade organization representing the banks and other financial institutions in Connecticut. He previously served as Executive Vice President and Treasurer before being selected in 2019 as President & CEO.

In his role as CEO, Mongellow leads the advocacy and regulatory relations programs for member institutions, and guides the CBA’s corporate and strategic initiatives as the banking landscape evolves. Prior to his elevation to CEO, he spent significant time within the CBA in the finance and operational functions, building experience in association leadership and banking-industry partnerships.

Mongellow is also the Treasurer of the Connecticut Bankers Foundation and active in community affairs.

BANKER NEWS BITS:

House Financial Services Chair French Hill held a hearing on deposit insurance, where Texas Bankers Association CEO (and FOTB Advisory Council Member) Chris Furlow noted in his testimony, "we strongly support a two-step process to provide immediate system protection, and enable a data-driven, multi-stakeholder process to achieve long-term modernization."

CQ Roll Call profiled Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC). “I realized I can have a talking point, or I could have a … legislative product,” Scott said in the article of his comprehensive housing bill, which cleared the Banking Committee in July. “I needed to spend more time listening to every single member to find out whether or not there was a sweet spot that could be included,” he said.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed two new rules for publication last week in the Federal Register, according to BankingDive: one arguably weakening fair-lending laws, and the other following through on a promise to revamp small-business data collection guidance that irked Republican lawmakers and drew a lawsuit and at least two enforcement delays.

"The last thing our economy needs right now is the movement of wealth out of dynamic stores of value in banks into static stores of value," argued Howard Headlee in the Utah Banker. "That is exactly why Congress prohibited the issuers of payment stablecoins from paying yield on payment stablecoins. They wanted to make payment stablecoins safe and reliable, but they didn’t intend to eliminate funding for small business loans in communities throughout America. Failure to enforce this law as written by allowing stablecoin issuers to pay yield through third parties will dramatically slow the creation of money, wealth and economic growth in our economy.

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PAID for by Friends of Traditional Banking. NOT authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Friends of Traditional Banking is a non-partisan grassroots effort organized by bankers in 2012 to improve the political and regulatory environment for the traditional banking industry in the U.S. FOTB is the inverse of a PAC--instead of spreading a little bit of money to a lot of campaigns, they focus a lot of money on a couple of key campaigns.