Congress' passage of the long-awaited thrift fund fix couldn't have been better timed, as far as Pennsylvania's community banks and thrifts are concerned.
Saturday night's overwhelming vote by the House of Representatives and Monday's by the Senate came as the Pennsylvania Association of Community Bankers was meeting here for its annual convention.
The trade group was formed four years ago in one of the first and most successful mergers of bank and thrift groups with nearly equal membership. It has been pushing for nearly two years to resolve the insurance fund issue; it even formed a committee of six banks and six thrifts back then to discuss possible answers.
"We took a leadership position at the beginning that was somewhat unpopular," said Frank Pinto, president of the group."But we might have acted as a catalyst for some people to get off their buns."
America's Community Bankers chairman James F. Montgomery, president and chief executive of California's Great Western Financial, said the Pennsylvania group was "one of the early groups of banks and thrifts to recognize the need to resolve this."
"This thing has kept us all, especially the thrifts, in a cloud of uncertainty," said Larry Giannone, chairman, president, and chief executive of Portage National Bank in Evansburg, Pa. "This will be a more peaceful situation. Everyone will know what their costs are."
The bill's passage buoyed the already high spirits among the 900 conference attendees at the Broadmoor Resort. They greeted the news with sighs of relief when Kenneth Guenther, executive vice president of the Independent Bankers Association of America, updated them.
"At least it won't be hanging over our heads," said Steve Spolar, a director with Pittsburgh Home Savings Bank.
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With merger of the two insurance funds and the two industries possible down the road, one conference attendee asked the Mr. Montgomery about merging his association with one of the two bank trade groups.
"I sure have been flattered a lot by my counterparts" at the American Bankers Association and the IBAA this year, Mr. Montgomery said with a laugh, "so maybe there is something to that."
He cautioned, however, that a merger wouldn't happen without a fair amount of work to resolve differences related to the charter, to ensure thrifts are treated fairly.
"I want to make sure that the bumps down the road are anticipated and dealt with," he said.
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The warm feelings at the conference contrasted to the cold and wet that greeted attendees on arrival in "the Springs" late last week.
Snow fell Thursday night, and four to six inches was on the ground early in Friday morning, closing some roads in the area, especially up to picturesque Pikes Peak.
A railway to the top was still running, however, so bankers could visit in spite of the weather.
Temperatures that reached into the 70s melted almost all of the snow by the evening.
