With Oregon's legislative session just two months away, bankers there want to remind lawmakers exactly what they have done for their communities lately.
The Oregon Bankers Association is updating its 2004 booklet, "Oregon Banks: Cornerstones of Our Communities," which described how its member banks helped their communities by making small-business and affordable-housing loans and contributing to local charities.
Oregon bankers want lawmakers to keep these things in mind as they consider legislation that could add to banks' regulatory burden, said Linda Navarro, the trade group's president and chief executive. In particular, she said, legislators are contemplating tougher anti-predatory-lending measures and similar ones, amid widely publicized stories of lending abuses often perpetrated by nonbank lenders.
"In consumer protection legislation, banks often get painted with a broad brush and are made out to be the villains that they're not," Ms. Navarro said. "We think we can play a role in displacing that myth."
James Ballentine, director of housing and community development at the American Bankers Association, said that other state trade groups, as well as the ABA, have distributed similar materials from time to time to state and federal lawmakers to demonstrate banks' commitment to their communities.
Such showcase pieces are also a good way to temper state legislation that might require banks to do things already mandated by federal law, such as reporting lending and community investment practices similar to what banks already have to do under the Community Reinvestment Act, Mr. Ballentine said.
"Legislators may read these materials and say, 'Wow, I did not know you did all that!' " he said. "While it may not prevent them from introducing their bills," the materials "may in some way modify the legislation to take into account things already done by banks."
In the 2004 booklet, the Oregon group highlighted its member banks' practices. Umpqua Bank in Portland and Pacific Continental Bank in Eugene, for instance, both give their employees 40 hours of paid time off - during work hours - to volunteer for charities such as the Boys and Girls Clubs, Special Olympics, and a local home and treatment center for troubled boys.
Employees at both South Valley Bank and Trust in Klamath Falls and Bank of Eastern Oregon in Heppner serve as clerks in animal auctions by kids involved in 4-H and Future Farmers of America. The bank employees not only oversee all of the auction's financial transactions, but they also provide comfort to younger children who are selling their animals for the first time.
First Federal Savings and Loan of McMinnville lets customers help decide which charities the bank will support. In 2004, First Federal mailed ballots to all its customers, and top voter-getters included Homeward Bound Pets, a local soup kitchen, a hospice, and Habitat for Humanity.
In all, members of the trade group made more than $13 million of charitable donations in 2003, and their employees served more than 150,000 hours as volunteers. Moreover, the banks made more than $1 billion of loans to small businesses and mortgages for affordable housing, and invested more than $100 million in state bonds and other programs.
The group does not want state lawmakers to exempt banks from consumer protection bills, Ms. Navarro said. Rather, "our goal is to be a part of those discussions, to make sure the solutions are not only best for consumers, but also workable for businesses," she said.
The group plans to distribute its updated booklet to lawmakers and the media in time for the 2007 legislative session, which begins Jan. 8.
