As banks in Florida begin the recovery from Hurricane Michael, ABA’s dedicated hurricane preparedness and response webpage offers bankers useful tools and resources to assist with the process. The page provides links to announcements and alerts from public and private agencies, situational reports and analyses, state evacuation, re-entry and road status updates, links to state associations’ hurricane resources and other industry recovery resources for banks and consumers. (ABA Banking Journal)

In this op-ed, ABA EVP Wayne Abernathy and VP Hugh Carney explain why it’s time for regulators to assess and calibrate capital requirements for banks of all sizes. (American Banker)

Banks have been at the forefront of cybersecurity for years, and their heavy investment in cybersecurity is increasingly the cost of doing business in financial services. It also presents an opportunity for banks to generate a return on that investment by earning revenue from the cybersecurity solutions they develop. (Bank Innovation)

A new report from Creditcards.com shows that credit card interest rates are on the rise. The average rate is just over 17 percent, up from about 16.15 percent this time last year and 15.22 percent in 2016. The creeping rates are due to the Fed's interest rates hikes since 2015. (Marketplace)

In the more than eight years since the Dodd-Frank Act passed, just 13 new U.S. banks have been chartered. In this edition of the ABA Banking Journal podcast, ABA Chairman Ken Burgess, who co-founded FirstCapital Bank of Texas as a de novo two decades ago, talks about how he is concerned about these numbers. (ABA Banking Journal)

The ability to own a home has long been a cornerstone of American life. Yet, the path to homeownership continues to be a challenge for many. Woodforest National Bank in the Woodlands, Texas, believes increasing access to homeownership is critical to building thriving communities and helping low- and moderate-income families build wealth. (ABA Banking Journal)

Ahead of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on consumer data privacy, ABA submitted a statement for the record calling on lawmakers to consider the existing set of privacy laws banks adhere to when drafting new federal privacy legislation. (ABA Banking Journal)

Seven Republican senators have endorsed efforts to revisit the Volcker Rule and urged the agencies to go beyond their proposed policy changes in making fixes to the complex rule. Specifically, the senators noted that the agencies’ July proposal suggested "few changes" to the rule’s provisions on "covered funds." (ABA Banking Journal)

Banks are going to bat for Democrats in the U.S. November midterm congressional elections as part of an ambitious strategy to rebuild the bipartisan support they enjoyed before the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Commercial banks have so far donated a total of $2.5 million to U.S. Senate Democrats in the 2018 election cycle, the largest sum since 2008, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. (Reuters)

ABA joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Consumer Bankers Association in urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to support banks and other businesses seeking to test new disclosures that may be clearer and more understandable than existing, legally required ones. (ABA Banking Journal)