black speaker of the house of delegates. tonight on q&a, a conversation with speaker scott talking about hurdles he has overcame including spending almost eight years in prison. >> it's breathtaking. it's amazing. i think about all of the people that came before me that allowed me to be in this place. i think about the pain and trauma that those enslaved people had during enemy where i am, the trauma and pain that birthed the opportunity that i have now to serve as speaker. i do not take that opportunity for granted. i am very proud and i feel a see responsibility and obligation to make sure i live up to the dream of the people that came before me. >> watch the full q&a interview with don scott 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now our free mobile video app or online at

c-span.org. >> the house will be in order. >> c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other this year. since 1979 we have been your primary source for capitol hill providing balanced unfiltered coverage of government. taking you to our policy is debated and decided with support of america's cable company. c-span. 45 years and counting powered by cable. >> now, a look at the state of the banking industry and existing financial regulations. bank executives and former regulators talk about this area -- this. >> please welcome aba president and ceo rob nichols.

>> bravo. fantastic. good morning, everybody. i am thrilled to welcome everyone to the nation's capital as we kick off the024 aba watch summit with newly 1300 bankers and state association leaders in attendance today with even more watching her livestream. thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to add your voice to our advocacy efforts. ig us and i want to extend a special thank you to the members of congress, regulators, and other guests speakers participating in our program over the next two days. this event is all about advocacy ,y that bankers are committed to working constructively towards a policy environment that supports a resilient banking system and economic growth. so individuals, families, and

businesses across this nation can thrive. bankers have anmportantperspects that come out of washington affect the main street. your perspective and expertise are a cornerstone of our advocacy strategy. this morning i want to talk about that strategy in greater depth and detail, specifically, how we respond to the climate we find ourselves in.

gavel of the house financial services committee, congressman blaine luetkemeyer a former banker and long serving member of that committee and senator kyrsten sinema, a former member of the banking committee and a ladeals. we do not know what the fall election will bring. but the departures from congress and ongoing partisan divide make it even harder to assess the outlook for banking legislation moving forward. we remain hopeful, of course. and, we will continue to do our part to support members of congress and candidates in both parties to understand the

critical role banking plays in our economy. now, with congress divided, the focus of the attention has shifted to the regulatory agencies. folks, the banking agencies have been busy. ight say too busy. i refer to this as a regulatory tsunami, a tidal wave of regulation that has crashed wn on the banking industry in recent months. we have seen a proposal to dramatically increase capital requirements that will limit already well-capitalized bank's ability to support the economy. proposal to slash the caps on debit card interchange limiting the revenue bands of all sizes used to pay for new products and promote financial inclusion, a misguided political campaign on so-called junk fees by the cfpb and biden administration targeting overdraft fees, and most recently, credit card late fees, which i will discuss in a moment.

and if they have even targeted fees that, by their own admission, banks are not even charged in -- charging. as the wall street journal said in an editorial last weekhe adms playing a game of whack a bank with the all-out assault on fee income. with the community reinvestment act and rules to impose convexity of data reporting requirements on small business limiting -- lending under 1071 of dodd frank. now we are hearing an overhaul of bank liquidity rules is also on the horizon. each of the will come with significant costs and impacts on bank operations, products, and services. aba is deeply concerned that regulators have not to consider the cumulative effects the changes will ultimately have on a bank's ability to serve their customers and communities and support the broader economy. we are so concerned that i sent

a letter to president biden a few weeks ago asking him to ha y oversight council step in. mr. president, stop the tsunami. thank you. [applause] when we take all this together, the prospects for a continued divided congress and a continued boundaries of their legal authority, it makes our jobs as advocates for the banking industry more challenging and more important than ever. so, how have we evolved our advocacy efforts to address this current climate? we are still working with members of congress from both parties. we are trying to work with regulators wherever and whenever we can. but, we have ensured that the regulations all of you must follow respect the law and allow your banks to serve yourlitigatr

first or preferred course of action. but, over the past few years, we have sn action that oversteps the authority granted to them by congress. when they insist on finalizing rules that fall outside the regulatory purview's, and when they add more the constructive feedback from banks and other stakeholders, litigation is our only remaining tool in the box. again, it is not a total we want to use. but, it is one we will continue to strategically wield as needed. the good news is we have already seen the courts side with us on some of these challenges. one example. with the texas bankers association and of the u.s. chamber of commerce in 2022 challenging the pb■'s surprise update to its you data exam manual. that dramatically expanded its new dap- udap enforcement overnight and the judge ruled

the bureau lacked the authority to make the changes and vacated the manual update. in a separate case on the cfpb section 1071 final rule reducing small businesses access to credit we also succeeded in winning a stay causing implementation of the rule pending announcement of another cfpb case of the supreme courtm. chamber of commerce andnity reinvestment overhaul act in court. it was not a decision we made lightly. aba and our members fully support the goals and principles underlying the cri. -- crna. --cra. american vents have long believed people in every order of the country should have a chance to succeed and we believe the roles underpinning the decades-old statute should be updated to reflect the realities of modern-day banking. as we reviewed the final rule with our members we reached a

conclusion that this exceedingly complex rulemaking, one, fails to consider a bank's demonstrated commitment to all communities and two, will create a cra evaluation framework that goes far beyond what congress authorized. most troubling, the final cra rule risks undermining the spirit of the original law by creating disincentives for banks to offer certain products portland outside the branch network. the agencies missed the mark. we reluctantly had to call them on it. to be clear, our nations banks are committed to lifting ul their customers, clients, and communities. but, a rule that will make that harder should be challenged. that is not the last of our legal actions. earlier this month we were forced to file yet another lawsuit against the cfpb over a newly issued final rule sshing credit card late fees by 75%. 75%.

there are reasons why banks charge late fees and why they are authorized by law to do so. late fees incentivize timely payment and compensate card issuers for costs they incur when payments are late. but the cfpb has labeled these fees junk fees and with this final rule the bureau effectively upended 10 years of regulation backed by administrations of both parties. while the cfpb claims to have excluded small issuers, the reality is that in a competitive marketplace all card issuers will be forced to dropñ■j fees o compete for customers. to be crystal clear, the rule will affect the accessibility of credit to consumer profound impact on banks' business models. our complaint lays out in detail our arguments against the rule including the cfpb's absurdly short 60 day compliance

deadline. we■[6 intervention by the court and a preliminary injunction that will stop it from taking effect until the court decides the merits of the case. we have an obligation to make sure the agencies overseeing the banking system are carrying out their duties within the law. consistent with the authority granted to them by congress. when they do not, they can count on seeing us in court. if we have to follow the rules, so today. you. [applause] the other way that we are ing our advoca in research data capabilities. we have seen regulators falling short on their own obligations to understand the potential consequences of their actions. a good example is what has been happening with the bank capital rules.

in our view regulators failed to assess how the proposed in game will affect our economy. in our joint comment letter with bpi we showed the harm it would cause. we were not alone. when you look at the comments that came in several weeks ago, an overwhelming 97% of them, 97%, were critical. is that criticism came from a broad cross-section of stakeholders. many were outside the banking industry. agriculture, housing advocates, environmental and civil rights groups. all of them spoke up and said of this proposal is a mistake. chairman powell's comments earlier this month signaled that the agencies may listening. but, we still feel strongly regulators need to go back to the drawing board. so today, i'm reiterating the aba call for the proposal to be withdrawn and re-proposed. basel three should not move

forward in its current form. we have conducted our own extensive research to support our 1071 case. an aba survey of bank leaders found the cbc■y underestimated g compliance costs by literally millions of dollars. we have deployed research teams to debunk harmful claims that the cfpb continues to make regarding the competitiveness of the credit card market. to highlight the damage, the fed proposal wouldct on banks of all sizes particularly their ability to offer low or no cost checking accounts and other products and emphasize the potential harm the so-called credit card competition act would have on consumers including spelling the end for credit card i could spend the rest of the morning going into detail on any

of these issues but i will save them for the panel later in the program. i invite you to take your own deep dive into our extensive research by visiting aba.com/reg research to find a complete list of detailed analysis we posted and provided over the last several months. we are better position today to prove how policy decisions coming from washington will not just affect america's banks, but also, the customers, clients, and communities that you so importantly serve. these agencies should expect us to rigorously review and challenge their findings and data where appropriate. by the way, that is however our in question the rising cost of the special assessment banks are paying for last spring's failures. they discovered the ftse chose to take financing from the fed -- fbi c chose to take financing

from the fed instead of other tu r funding and the fed loan came with penalty pricing adding as much as $2.5 billion to the bill banks alternately being asked to foot. we have yet to hear an explanation for that decision. now, litigation and an emphasis on conducting around robust data analysis are two ways we have evolved our advocacy efforts to respond to the current climate. but, there are also several pillars of our advocacy strategy that remain unchanged. we continue to engage with congress, the administration, ■e independent regulators as constructively as we can. we are committed to working with anyone and everyone interested in advancing a progrowth policy agenda. we continue to build industry coalitions to elevate issues facing the nation's banks. we are collaborating with other trades. our incredible state alliance partners and many others to raise the alarm about the regulatory tsunami.

we will continue to do so with facts and data on our side. we will continue to leverage these partnerships as we work to advance some key piecesf legislation including baker act that will strengthen a bank's ability to support verbal economies and the safer banking act that will enable banks to serve cannabis related businesses in the 38 states that have voted to legalize it. it is also great tolegislative o encourage the creation of de novo banks. in addition, we are always working -- looking for new innovative ways to address the real-world challenges facing consumers. we have worked to reduce the number of un-banked americans through championing the bank on initiative. we are tackling the pervasive problem of fraud head-on with several ongoing initiatives including our award-winning■ñ banks never ask that campaign. and we are taking particular aim at check fraud. today, for example, the aba

■0 the u.s. postal inspection service are releasing a new joint info graphic that we hope will be shared across the country. last, but certainly not least, we continue to engage with the public to tell the story of america's banks. it is a different story than some in the regulatory community are telling. the fact is, americans are happy with their bank and clearly recognize that the financial services marketplace is highly competitive despite claims to the contrary. this morning we are releasing a new morning consult national it shows almost nine in 10 american consumers say they are , or very satisfied, with their primary bank and an overwhelming 96% rate their primary bank's customer service as excellent, very good, eight in 10 said they are confident

the ited at the primary bank is safe and over 80% will believe the banking sector is highly competitive. a similar number agreed they have multiple options to choose from when selecting financial products and services like bank accounts, loans, and credit cards. not only are consumers happy with their banking choices and the service they received from their banks, they are skeptical of the government interferi in the financial services marketplace. according to our survey armor seven in 10 american consumers agreed that the economic challenges facing our country, everything from persistent inflation to slowing growth, given all that now is not the time to impose additional regulatory burdens that will restrict bank lending. and a similar number agreed that when so many new simultaneously, regulators should be required to assess the combined effects of the new rules on banks,

consumers, and the broader economy before the rules can take effect. we could not agree more. to bring my comments to a close, the message i want everybody to take away is this. there are two different stories being told now about the banking sector. one is rooted in faulty, inadequate, or nonexistent data. consequently, regulations tailed scenario are fundamentally unsuited to the real world of banking that americans live everything today. and, pursuing their implementation will do significant harm to our nation's banks, their customers, and their communities everywhere. bankers knowu are living it eve. we need you, now more than ever, to help us tell it. not just here at the summit. but, throughout the year as we head to the upcoming election season. we need you to speak up about

the imrtprotecting our broad ane banking sector that remains the envy of the world. about how banks continue to be vital providers of credit that feel the engines of our local state and national economies. and, how banks serve as a gateway for consumers seeking their own piece of the american dream that a banking relationship can help unlock. your voices page on false narratives spreading about the banking sector. so, you can get back to doing what you do best, serving your customers, clients, and communities, and helping our nation's economy thrive. thank you for being here. thank you for your time this morning. thank you for your advocacy today and every day. [applause] now, to bring the real-world perspective to the policy debate here in washington, i want to invite■d t■o the stage four bank

ceos from different corners of the country that can help us tell the real stories of banking today. please, welcome aba chair elect don has very, the ceo of atlantic union bancshares in union, virginia. the aba board member the president and ceo of wofford bank in seattle. aba vice chair kenneth kelley the chairman and ceo of first independence bank in detroit. and, aba chair julie furlow, president and ceo of the reading crawford bank in reading, massachusetts. and our moderator our very own chief communications officer peter cook. [applause] . peter: good morning, everyone. have a seat and welcome. thank you for being here. thank you all for being here as well. its always a highlight for me

to be able to chat with our members, particularly, board members were now. essentially, my bosses right here that i can have this conversation with. it is nice to see you all. rob just gave the introduction. you heard his remarks. we know where you are all from. but not everyone here may some people watching on c-span for example might not know much about your individual institutions. julie, archer, you can go first. tell us about your bank and into picture. julie: reading cooperative bank is a mutual bank doors are boston, massachusetts by about 15 miles. i'm not sure if you're familiar with the north shore. wewned and we were founded in 1886. we are a nine branch operation. we are $900 million in assets. our last couple office has been intentionally opened in communities in minority majority communities with an intent to

address financial needs in those communities. peter: kenneth question mark: thank you, peter good morning. my name is can kelly the chairman and ceo of first independence bank in detroit, michigan. we have beenyears. we are one of the positive outcomes of the 1967 riots in detroit becoming the first ever african-erican controlled bank in the state of michigan and we currently have actually operations in minneapolis minnesota, part of a george floyd's murder was the outcome of banksn market set and we want to do something differently and got invited to, look at the opportunity to expand into that market. we are proud to represent team there in detroit that is a fine job there every day trying to bring financial services to that community. brent: good morning, peter. thank you for having me. i am from seattle. i need to pay tribute to marchand lynch.

i am just here so i don't get fined. peter: not true. brent: it is a pleasure to be here. f wasit bank, a $30 billion bank on the west washington to texas.es om we completed an $8 billion acquisition of luther burbank savings. after 15 months of awaiting regulatory approval we finallyge transaction at 11:59 thursday february 29. and the next day fridayersion. i am pleased to report on thursday night at 8:00 p.m. we got it all done. to my knowledge one of the fastest closing conversions ever and we are net positive on deposits. so i am a happy guy sitting on stage. peter: and you won't be fined. john: thank you, peter. we are atlantic union bank and we operate through virginia a diversified full-service bank with a little over $21 billion

in assets. our boots go back to 1902. while we were primarily a virginia bank we have operations in north carolina and maryland. we are merging with a 114-year-old virni bank called american national bank. that's a fine institution. there are longtime friends of ours that operate in the western and southern part of the state and north carolina. the expansion into north carolina. that's our story. peter: four banks representing the diversity of the banking sector in the country. the strength of the banking sector in the u.s. and the fact that the u.s. is very different than so many other countrin theh of our institutions. we all know this has been an interesting year. one year ago at this time when we had the summit we were talking about svb and signature and everything that had happened in the spring of last year. john, tell me a little bit about where we are today. as an introductory -- an

industry, your own institution. where are you at? john from the industry has demonstrated resilience and we have seen proof points that what happened with what i call flash failure banks, these were anomalies. they weren't representative of the industry. /9hyper great strategy, unstable deposit bases, and, i think all of that was essentially called out. overreliance on uninsured deposits, etc.. i think as an industry we stayed true to our clients and other relationships. we told our story and demonstrated that more than anything else it is diversification that really matters. something i have said over and over and over again, matthew to theay, it is really just going of the deposit base that matters. so, i think the vast majority of us have very granular stable deposit bases and that is what relylet's face it. it increased what was already building pressure on the interest margin. we were one of the first

publicly traded banks in america that came out of q1. that said, we will take meaningful expense reduction actions. it seems like one challenge after another all year long. i did and we grew our deposit base 5.6 percentage points and we grew landing. -- lending. that did what needed to be done. the industry is resilient. brent: we talked so much about stress testing. let's be real. this industry just went through an amazing stress test. a 500 basis point shock in interest rates. that's stunning. especially from such a low point where interest rates were. it is natural there were stresses. when you think about the failure of svb it was a basic failure of banking, managing interest-rate risk. one of the buzzwords i am sure we will talk about it, i am sure

all of the regulators are talking to each of you about is risk management. i go back to the svb example. what was the duration of their core deposits. almost anything you look at with svb, their core deposits were sticky as deposits could be. there deposits did nothing but grow grow grow through cycles over 40 years. you could have done any study that said a five -- 8-10 years estimated duration on deposits. except what happens if you get stress, you get this flashwith h social media and instead of eight years, it was less than 24 hours. so, it is a good reminder to me that you can run all the models you want and have all the validation of those models, and those models can still be wrong. i think that is one of the of the american banking sector. we all have these regulations. we understand, what are the measures we need to keep? we also say ok we want a margin of error beyond that

because we know it cannot be that precise. peter: can, your thoughts? can -- kenneth: in times of stress leaders provide comms stability and we saw what happened that bretjust mentioned a moment ago. we saw billy $47 billion moved -- we saw $47 billion moved inside of 24 hours. there is lack of trust. you find people will do things they would not normally do like go withdraw their money. it is important that we as leaders in this industry demonstrate that leadership of calmness when we are on the hill today. hopefully we will hear that on the panel behind us from form your -- former regulators that are talking about it. it only takes someone to say there is a fire in here for all of us to try to get and create a problem. we all know in a capitalist society money is oxygen. we have got to be sure we are providing a level of leadership that everyone understands.

your oxygen will be had. julie's bed -- julie's bank, bretz bank, and john's bank when you needed. i think that is the level of calmness we need to bring to the discussion. brent is right. i am an engineer by training. when you look at the slope of the line, a fancy way of saying how fast they ran rates up, nobody in their modeling practice -- practiced 500 basis points. if you do, please inform me. we do 400 on the high-end low side. the point i am making is no one anticipated thate un-up inside of 18 months. so, my advice to fed governors and the officers i have had a chance to speak with is, we need, -- we need calm and stability now. if united -- if youo find what t is so we can prepare. we did not have a chance to prepare on this one. it created stress, as brent just mentioned, not only the banks we were talking about, but across

the system. hopefully they have done a good job of projecting a downward increase. but my view, given where we are and the instability around the election, i think, is calm and eapete: julie, you have talked your own customers and been traveling the country talking about aba around the country. what is your sense of the last year? julie: i think we are in a good spot now and i think that banks are more brazilian than we give them credit for. we have been three cycles before where we have balance sheets and we only have certain lovers we can pull so we just adjust our strategy as we move forward to address the new paradigm. did we bear the cost of svb? absolutely. all our deposit costs rose. we have managed through that and now we are waiting for the next cycle to hit.

pete: we have a fed meeting starting today with a decision on interest rates tomorrow. let me get your sense, if you had the chance to talk to jay powell and his kenneth, i will n with you. what advice would you give jay powell? kenneth: i don't have a direct line to jay powell and i don't want to fix that. [laughter] but i do have a couple folks we get a chance to speak with and provide input. the fed come out of chicago, listens to us. i also had a chance to be on a panelt of the minneapolis fed and my advice was the same, we need stability at this point in time. we have not seen that of the cost running through the system, meaning, understanding, what does that mean to a small business when i have to pay a higher interest rate cost? my advice would be calm and steady i think will win the race

here. i think the point has been made that rates will not move. but, now is the time to allow individuals to figure out how do we build that level of resilience across your balance sheets? so, if we run into more turbulence at some point in time you are of dealing with that. peter: any one else have advice or input for the fed? what's am in no position to give jay powell advice but i agree about calm and steady. we are a fractional banking system. if anyone of us in this room suffers the kind of run svb had we won't be around for long. we need to promote confidence and calm. it is best to do that when there is substance behind us. i agree we have sutaour bankingr today than ever before from a capital and liquidity standpoint. that said, asral reserve, i bele is too much transparency.

they make a mistake when they go provide. pot for where rates will go. they say this is where we think rates will go. but, we will be data dependent. it turns out that of us can predict the fureeven jay powelle future. why set expectations for where rates will go when we don't know what will it is one of the thins gotten us in trouble. it has gotten the markets frothy in some respects. earlier this year i think some people were banking in five or seven cuts this year. i looked at that and shook my head. inflation is still well above the 2% target. how can we bank that i do? people look. five sensei, that is what it will need to be. so i think the pendulum may have swung too far in terms of transparency. >> i think it is steady as she goes. they will go to measured pace. >> the summit for international

peace i am dan baron