Bill Loving, president and CEO of Pendleton Community Bank in Franklin, WV and chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), told community bankers gathered at the 2013 ICBA National Convention and Techworld in Las Vegas that regulatory relief for community banks will be his top priority as ICBA chairman.

“ICBA developed and recently unveiled a new robust platform for the 113th Congress. This initiative, or ‘Plan for Prosperity,’ contains a dozen regulatory relief provisions that will better enable your bank to serve your community,” Loving said before a room full of community bankers during his inaugural speech. “Regulatory relief is job No. 1, and I promise you we will not let up until Congress and the regulators understand that overregulation of community banks will destroy the very economies and jobs we seek to grow.”

In addition to working with Congress and regulators to foster regulatory relief for community banks, Loving said that throughout the next year he and ICBA will work on seeking solutions for numerous critical issues important to community bankers, such as complex accounting standards, mortgage rulemaking, Basel III, too-big-to-fail, the brutal exam environment and blocking the credit union power grab for member business lending. He also asked community bankers to continue reaching out to Congress and regulators to ensure their voices are heard from every part of the country. “We must be engaged,” he said. “We must fight for our industry. We must take care of today with an eye to the future.”