As consumers increasingly look to banks to help them safely hold cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols announced in an ABA Viewpoint blog post on Tuesday that the association has invested in NYDIG, a leading provider of bitcoin solutions for banks.

Nichols noted that the investment would help support banks’ ability to meet customer demand for crypto products and services, citing NYDIG’s compliance-first approach, focus on the community bank market and focus on supporting banks rather than competing with them.

The ABA is offering each state banking association $750 scholarships for two emerging leaders to attend the ABA Emerging Leaders Forum and Washington Summit on March 7-9 in Washington D.C. The ABA Emerging Leaders Forum is an opportunity to share challenges and strategies with peers as you work to cultivate a strong, dynamic and diverse banking industry for the future.

Five FDIC-insured banks yesterday announced the launch of the USDF Consortium, a group that was formed with the goal of building a network of banks to facilitate the adoption of USDF, a bank-minted stablecoin. The consortium’s founding members include New York Community Bank, Denver-based NBH Bank, Nashville-based First Bank, Montebello, N.Y.,-headquartered Sterling National Bank and Columbus, Ga.,-based Synovus Bank, and the group said it intends to “significantly grow its membership of FDIC-insured banks through 2022 and beyond.” Figure Technologies and JAM Fintop are also founding members.

‌USDF will operate on the public Provenance Blockchain, will be minted exclusively by U.S. banks and will be redeemable on a one-to-one basis for cash from a consortium member bank.

If you have not yet reserved your hotel room for the SDBA's State Legislative Day on Feb. 9 in Pierre, the hotel blocks have been extended. The hotel block at the Ramkota Hotel & Conference Center has been extended to Friday, Jan. 14, and the hotel block at the ClubHouse Hotel & Suites has been extended to Tuesday, Jan. 18. 

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to connect with South Dakota’s lead decision makers at the SDBA State Legislative Day. Stay up-to-date on state and federal legislation that could affect the banking industry, visit with state leaders, legislators and constitutional officers and be the voice for the banking industry. 

The SDBA is calling on member banks to participate in its annual South Dakota Banks Make a Difference Survey, which provides a glimpse into how banks work every day to help South Dakotans grow and prosper. On Monday, the SDBA sent the survey link to all SDBA member bank CEOs and the person at each bank who completed last year's survey. 

The 2022 South Dakota Legislature opens on Tuesday, Jan. 11, in Pierre and is a 38-day session. The main run of the session ends on March 10, with March 28 reserved for consideration of gubernatorial vetoes. For the full legislative schedule, listing of bills, committee schedules and legislators’ contact information, visit the South Dakota Legislative Research Council’s website.

The Midwest Economic Forecast Forum will be presented on Tuesday, Jan. 4, virtually by the Wisconsin Bankers Association, in partnership with the Illinois Bankers Association, Michigan Bankers Association, Minnesota Bankers Association, Montana Bankers Association and South Dakota Bankers Association. The forum will be held from 10:30 a.m. to noon CST.

Prairie Family Business Association will hold a Succession Planning How-To's Webinar on Friday, Jan. 7, at 10 a.m. CST. Learn from three families in various stages of their succession plans: David and Jan Johnson of Reliabank, Jarod Stec of Stec's Advertising, and Darcy Christenson of Quality and Triview Communications. You'll come away with strategies that work as well as pitfalls for you to avoid. Learn more and register.

In a year-end message to ABA member banks last week, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols provided a recap of several major accomplishments made on behalf of the banking industry in 2021, including those related to the COVID-19 response, economy recovery, banking policy and financial inclusion.

Nichols highlighted bank efforts to support their customers throughout the pandemic and recovery, particularly through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. He also highlighted efforts by ABA and bankers to defeat a controversial proposal to create a new bank account-based IRS reporting regime; educate senators from both parties on the policy views of former OCC nominee Saule Omarova; advocate for the withdrawal of several controversial rules, including the 2020 Community Reinvestment Act rule; and draw attention to the unlevel playing field between banks and credit unions, through the relaunch of the Reform Credit Unions campaign.

Whatever is beautiful. Whatever is meaningful. Whatever brings you happiness. May it be yours this holiday season and throughout the coming year.

During the holiday season, the SDBA likes to thank our membership by making donations to worthy causes. This year, we made donations to Make-A-Wish South Dakota and Capital Area United Way.

Late last Friday, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a two-to-one decision, lifted a judicial stay of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA immediately announced set new dates by which employers must come into compliance with the vaccine mandate.

The agency said it will not issue citations for non-compliance with any aspect of the vaccine mandate before Jan. 10 and that it will not issue any citations for non-compliance with the mandate’s testing requirements before Feb. 9 “so long as the employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard.” The mandate requires employers with 100 or more employees to in turn require their employees be vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID-19. Unvaccinated employees also would be required to wear a mask when indoors except when alone in a private office.

Scholarships are available to South Dakota bankers planning to attend their first year of  the Graduate School of Banking in Wisconsin and the Graduate School of Banking in Colorado. 

The SDBA State Legislative Day on Feb. 9, 2022, at the Ramkota Hotel & Conference Center in Pierre is your opportunity to stay up-to-date on both state and federal legislation which could affect the banking industry, visit with state legislators and constitutional officers, and make sure our industry is heard.

The day will include an SDBA Legislative Committee meeting, lunch, SDBA update, featured speaker Dr. Chris Kuehl, Gov. Kristi Noem (invited), the chance to visit with state legislators at the State Capitol, and an evening reception with state legislators and constitutional officers. The day will also include special sessions specifically designed for emerging bank leaders.

The Dakota School of Lending Principles, hosted by the South Dakota Bankers Association and co-sponsored by the North Dakota Bankers Association on March 29 - April 1, 2022, in Aberdeen is a learning event with one foot grounded in the classroom and one foot in the bank. This school allows students to learn the theory and process of basic lending and then put this knowledge to work in actual nuts and bolts sessions.

In the four modules on loan types (consumer lending, real estate lending, analyzing small business loans and agricultural lending), learn the lending process by studying elements applicable to each loan type: terminology, the application process, interviewing, investigation, credit analysis, loan structure, decision communication and selling. Case studies and exercises provide hands-on learning experience.

The OCC has identified principles for banks to implement what it calls “responsible overdraft programs that benefit financially vulnerable consumers,” while continuing to encourage banks to offer other options for short-term, small-dollar credit, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu said in a speech yesterday. With policymakers increasingly scrutinizing bank overdraft programs—and with several banks recently announcing changes to their overdraft offerings—Hsu noted that his agency has conducted its own review of bank overdraft programs and identified “several features . . . that could be modified or recalibrated to support financial health.”

Among these features are: requiring consumers to opt-in to overdraft programs; providing a grace period before charging an overdraft fee; allowing negative balances without triggering an overdraft fee; offering consumers balance-related alerts; providing consumers with access to real-time balance information; linking a consumer’s checking account to another account for overdraft protection; collecting overdraft or non-sufficient funds fees from a consumer’s next deposit only after other items have been posted or cleared; not charging separate and multiple overdraft fees for multiple items in a single day; and not charging additional fees when an item is re-presented.

The National School for Beginning Ag Bankers is an intensive school designed to train in all facets of agricultural lending with emphasis on credit analysis, credit scoring, risk rating, problem loans and group case study. Sponsored by the SDBA, the school will be held June 20-23, 2022, on the campus of Black Hills State University in Spearfish, S.D.

The purpose of the National School for Beginning Ag Bankers is to prepare ag bankers to make better loan decisions. Ag bankers with zero to three years of experience should attend this school. Attendees will receive personalized instruction and continual peer interaction fostered through a limited class size, case study and group exercises.

A majority of ag lenders—69.7%—reported that overall farm profitability increased in the prior year, due in large part to government support, which is estimated to account for 38% of ag borrowers’ net income, according to the 2021 Agricultural Lenders Survey conducted by ABA and Farmer Mac. This marks the first time since the survey began in 2016 that a majority of ag lenders reported an increase in overall farm profitability. Lenders also said they expect that 80% of their borrowers will be profitable in 2021.

Competition with other lenders was the greatest overall concern facing ag lenders in 2021, with just more than half ranking it among their top two concerns, up 13 points from last year. The majority—82.3%—said the Farm Credit System was their number one competitor. Other top concerns included weak loan demand, interest rate volatility and credit quality and ag loan deterioration.

ABA and a coalition of financial trade groups yesterday expressed opposition to a proposed Small Business Administration direct lending program that has been included in the Biden administration’s “Build Back Better” legislation. In a letter to congressional leaders yesterday, the groups raised concerns that the proposed program will undermine existing public-private partnership SBA loan programs and potentially limit access to capital to small businesses “due to increased complexity.”

In a joint letter with the Independent Community Bankers of America and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition yesterday, ABA urged lawmakers to schedule an oversight hearing for the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) in light of several recent NCUA rulemakings that the groups said “would undermine important statutory guardrails designed to protect low-income consumers.” The groups noted that an NCUA-specific congressional hearing has not been held since 2015.

The letter came one day before NCUA is set to finalize a new rule that would expand the definition of “service facility” for common bond credit unions, enabling them to add groups to their fields of membership on effectively a national basis—disregarding the statutory requirement that credit unions be in “reasonable proximity” to the customers they seek to serve. The NCUA board appears likely to approve the rule even amid opposition from the current Democratic NCUA Chairman Todd Harper and former chairman Mark McWatters, a Republican. Previously, NCUA finalized another controversial rule—which Harper also opposed—expanding the range of permissible lending activities for credit union service organizations, or CUSOs.