Nearly 11,500 bankers will host financial education events across the country this week in recognition of Teach Children to Save Day today. Bankers will teach students the fundamentals of financial literacy, including the basics of saving, budgeting and how to distinguish needs from wants. This year marks the 20th year of the program, which has reached nearly 8 million children with the help of almost 200,000 bank volunteers since 1997. (ABA Banking Journal)

At virtually every stage of life, sooner or later everyone runs into an ethical dilemma. No matter what the circumstances, the question at the heart of every ethical dilemma is the same: do you do what’s right, or what you can get away with? (ABA Banking Journal)

"Where is my money going?!" is a common enough shopping refrain, but consumers might be doing more than lamenting bad spending habits. According to "socially conscious" bank Aspiration, consumers are legitimately asking where their money is going—that’s why the startup launched its new Aspiration Impact Measurement (AIM) feature this week. (Bank Innovation)

Consumers appear to be stumbling in early 2017. Retail sales registered on the weak side in the last two months and, according to the Atlanta Federal Reserve, real consumer spending is tracking at a dismal 0.3 percent growth rate for the first quarter. Will that derail the Fed’s plans for two rate hikes and balance-sheet reduction this year? (Bloomberg View)

For many paying off student loans, saving and investing may seem like the last things you can afford to do. But financial apps can help and these apps are designed to help make spending and investing a little less daunting. (Washington Post)

The White House released the "core principles" of President Trump's tax plan Wednesday afternoon, but not much in the way of specifics. The administration (led in a press briefing by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn) said the plan would cut the number individual tax brackets from seven down to three but did not provide information on what income levels would correspond to each bracket. (Forbes)

Common-sense changes to the current regulatory and legislative framework can help drive economic growth and allow banks to better serve their customers, clients and communities, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols said this week in an interview on Bloomberg TV. While Nichols said that ABA is not seeking a wholesale repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act, he highlighted several changes that could be made to current policy, specifically with regard to the arbitrary asset thresholds that the bill put in place. (ABA Banking Journal)

As part of the banking industry’s continuing response to President Trump’s executive order outlining "core principles" for financial regulation, ABA published a white paper this week urging federal regulators to make changes to the current stress testing framework for large and midsize banks. While acknowledging that stress testing can be a powerful regulatory tool when properly designed and administered, ABA noted a lack of transparency within the current stress testing framework. (ABA Banking Journal)

In an op-ed for The Hill this week, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols addresses the current lobbying campaign by big-box retailers to defend a policy that hurts consumers, harms small retailers and makes no economic sense. Their goal is to protect the Durbin amendment, a bad policy passed through an even worse legislative process. (The Hill)

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday praised a sweeping Republican rewrite of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act without explicitly endorsing it as the GOP administration and lawmakers work toward rolling back post-recession financial regulation. (The Hill)

A senior OCC official reaffirmed today that the agency’s limited-purpose fintech charter would not lead to "light-touch" supervision for fintech companies. "I have to dispel the misperception that once the fintech company would become a national bank, weaker and less effective consumer protections will apply and state law would cease to apply entirely," said Grovetta Gardineer, senior deputy comptroller for compliance and community affairs. (ABA Banking Journal)

Members of the Federal Reserve’s Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council — which includes several ABA member bank CEOs — raised concerns about compliance examination processes and the current regulatory landscape in a recent meeting, according to minutes released by the Fed. (ABA Banking Journal)

In a white paper sent to the Treasury Department, ABA called for a full repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act’s complex Volcker Rule, which requires all banks, regardless of risk, to stop any activities that might be characterized as "proprietary trading" or "covered fund investments." (ABA Banking Journal)

Apr 30-May 5
Commercial Lending School - Foundational
Dallas, TX 

Apr 30-May 5
Commercial Lending School - Advanced
Dallas, TX