3 minute read

I’m a community banker

from Taos Woman

by mmgdezign

from Taos Woman, page 34

Through the looking glass

Rebeca Romero Rainey

‘I’m a community banker’ Centinel Bank of Taos CEO to lead national discussion

10 TAOS WOMAN 2016 • TAOSNEWS.COM/TAOSWOMAN

Robbie Steinbach

By John Miller M any who call Taos home, whether for a season or for a lifetime, understand just how challenging it can be to live here. Those who endeavor to stay often wrestle with some very basic questions: “Where am I going to work? How will I pay my bills? How can I afford to raise a family? How can I start and sustain a business?”

The same questions arise in any other part of the United States, but in a historically homogenous and isolated economy, the answers can be particularly hard to find — driving many natives and transplants to seek opportunities in larger, urban areas.

For more than 40 years, the Romero family, founder of Centinel Bank of Taos, have been seeking solutions to these problems through the community banking model — a non-traditional form of lending that has been challenged by the economic swings of the past two decades, but may be one of the most promising options for investment and growth in small, rural communities like Taos.

In 1999, Rebeca Romero Rainey, current CEO and chairman for Centinel Bank of Taos, took up her family’s legacy and became the youngest bank president in the United States. Rainey has since served as chairman of the Minority Bank Council, a member of the Policy Development Committee and, in December 2009, was invited to the White House to discuss lending practices with President Obama in the midst of the late2000s financial crisis.

In March of this year, she will assume another role as chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), leading a national discussion on the future of community banking that brings Taos’ singular economic example to the national stage.

One of her first priorities is to address the regulatory reforms that are threatening to undo the community banking model.

“Community banks are facing an incredible amount of ‘reg’ burden right now, and there’s the potential for even more,” said Rainey. “A big part of what I and others at the leadership level have been working on over the last several years is how we define community banking, vis–à–vis banking. Once upon a time, I would have said that I’m a ‘banker.’ Today, I say that I’m a ‘community banker’ because they are really two very, very different business models.”

Unlike larger, commercial banks, community lending institutions like Centinel Bank operate on a kind of closed system, lending only to borrowers in their respective counties. Rainey explained that “an independent community bank is one where the interest is in the community — taking the assets of the community and reinvesting back within that community. ‘Independent’ means having that ability to make those decisions based on the needs of the community.”

Historically, this has granted municipalities greater control over where capital is directed and spent — a key financial mechanism in an area like Taos. But, new federal restrictions are blurring the definitions. Rainey hopes to find creative ways to reverse this trend.

“Driving tiered and proportionate regulation for community banking is a top priority,” Rainey said. “It is essential that we examine and regulate community banks proportionately to the risk that they represent — to the Deposit Insurance Fund, to the economy, to whatever it may be — we have to find that congruence and treat it appropriately.”

The ICBA represents more than 6,000 community banks across the United States and is led by an executive committee of 11 independent bankers. If you take a look at the current roster, more than 80 percent of the executives are men. Now at 39 years of age, Rainey is set to become the youngest chairman, and only the third female chairman in the ICBA’s 85-year history.

“I’m hopeful that I can be a voice and an example of a younger, female manager and what can be done within a community bank — how you can have fun and create new opportunities,” she said. “We need to think about how we preserve and protect the model so that we can continue to have fun and leverage community dollars to create and build local economies, and to that end, we have to get more people — younger men and women — interested in doing that.”