Pushing back on BIG GOVERNMENT policymakers intent on placing new burdens and/or restrictions on the banking industry continues to consume more and more time for KBA’s Leadership and Government Relations staff team. The list of harmful proposals coming out of Washington, D.C., since 2020 is daunting, ranging from the CFPB’s 1071 small business reporting rule to restrictions on bank service fee income, such as overdraft protection, to mandates impacting how banks provide and cover costs associated with their credit card programs. This is just a small sampling of proposals that will directly and negatively impact the banking industry if the BIG GOVERNMENT advocates win. But it’s not just banks that will lose income, lose options and lose control if these measures are adopted. Consumers will lose, too!

I’m closing in on my 20th year as a member of the KBA staff team, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned traversing the state and calling on banks from St. Francis to Baxter Springs and from Wathena to Syracuse, it’s that Kansas banks genuinely care about and look out for their customers. Every time I sit across from the desk of a Kansas banker, I hear success stories of individuals and businesses in their communities or about the latest community development project the bank is helping to spearhead. These visits confirm the close working relationship between Kansas bankers and their customers. Whether it’s keeping an eye out for the latest consumer fraud tactic, encouraging a family-owned business or farm to plan and strategize for a generational leadership transition and, yes, apprising customers of harmful policies being touted by the BIG GOVERNMENT crowd in Washington, Kansas bankers are increasingly on guard not simply for the bank, but for their customers too.

Kansas bankers educating and informing their customers of misguided legislation or regulations emitting from Washington, D.C., reached a fever-pitch I hadn’t seen before in 2021 when a federal legislative proposal surfaced that would have forced banks to share customer data on accounts with total annual deposits or withdrawals of more than $600 to the Internal Revenue Service. When this proposal was gaining traction in Congress, the banking industry educated the masses and led to the IRS reporting proposal being shelved, with strong opposition coming from federal lawmakers from both political parties. The pushback on the IRS reporting proposal was an important lesson for me and, I believe, for our industry.

With an ever-increasing number of legislative and regulatory proposals negatively impacting banks and bank customers, last fall, KBA’s Board of Directors directed your KBA staff team to establish a consumer-focused non-profit platform designed to educate Kansans on any proposed policy that will restrict their control of personal financial decisions or jeopardize the safety and security of their personal financial information. Free Market Kansans (a 501 C 4 non-profit) launched on Jan. 8, and the new platform is now actively educating Kansas consumers of ill-advised proposals that expand government overreach into the personal financial decisions and free-market options available to every Kansan.

I hope you’ll check out www.freemarketkansans.org to learn more, and I hope we can count on you to spread the word on FMK to your bank colleagues and your bank customers.

“We who live in free market societies believe that growth and prosperity, and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down.”

— President Ronald Reagan