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May 22, 2025

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ABA Banking Journal: Proposed amendment would add credit card rate cap to Senate stablecoin bill

May 21, 2025

ABA, associations urge Congress to overturn CFPB credit card late fees rule

A proposed amendment introduced today would add language capping credit card interest rates at 10% to the GENIUS Act, an unrelated bill establishing a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) proposed the amendment, which would add the text of his 10% Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Act to the GENIUS Act. Hawley and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced the rate cap proposal as a standalone bill in March but so far it has failed to gain traction among lawmakers.

In a joint letter to Senate leaders, the American Bankers Association joined with other banking and credit union associations in denouncing the proposed amendment, which they said would harm the very people Hawley has said he is seeking to protect.

“Many consumers who currently rely on credit cards would be forced to turn elsewhere for short-term financing needs, including pawn shops, auto title lenders or worse – loan sharks, unregulated online lenders and the black market,” the associations said.

They added that a reduction in credit resulting from a cap would have negative ripple effects on not only consumers who rely on credit to help make ends meet, but the broader economy as a whole.

“Other research demonstrates that when consumers lose access to credit, they often reduce spending on essentials such as healthcare, education and food, and are more likely to fall behind on bill, mortgage and rent payments,” the associations said. “Lacking a credit card would also likely reduce their consumption of items like furniture and clothing which not only negatively affects consumers, but also negatively affects the broader economy.”

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ABA Banking Journal: Harnessing AI for smarter, stronger compliance

Banks that successfully integrate AI into their compliance operations tend to follow the mantra: Automate the process, not the principle.

May 21, 2025 | Kalyani Ramadurgam and Samah Chowdhury
Future-forward compliance

Compliance staff and AI tools work best in tandem — technology handles large-scale manual work while people provide context and judgment.

As banks navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape, the pressure to do more with less is intensifying. The regulatory burden increased significantly under the Dodd-Frank Act, which nearly doubled the number of regulations for U.S. banks and added approximately $50 billion in annual compliance costs for the industry. Against this backdrop, artificial intelligence is poised to transform compliance operations. Compliance work largely consists of skilled professionals spending countless hours reading, analyzing and documenting their review of complex materials — exactly the type of cognitive tasks that modern AI excels at augmenting.

Current state of bank compliance

Banks face a host of challenges that make traditional compliance processes increasingly unsustainable. From consumer protection to anti-money laundering, the cost and complexity of compliance is escalating. Legacy systems and labor-intensive manual reviews only add to the burden. The following issues illustrate the strain that banks are under:

  • Labor-intensive reviews of vendor documentation and contracts;
  • Regulatory changes that require constant monitoring and adaptation;
  • Internal audit processes that require extensive documentation and cross-referencing;
  • Legacy systems that struggle to scale with growing transaction volumes; and
  • Error-prone and inconsistent manual reviews that pose larger risks when missed.

Given these challenges, AI presents an opportunity to modernize compliance without compromising on rigor.

AI offers additional bench strength

The nature of compliance work — processing vast amounts of data, identifying regulatory gaps and ensuring adherence to complex frameworks — makes it particularly well-suited for AI integration. By automating routine tasks, AI can handle the heavy lifting, leaving compliance teams to focus on higher-value activities. Because compliance operations are largely behind the scenes, AI can be seamlessly integrated without disrupting customer-facing services.

For example, intelligent document analysis tools can rapidly process and extract critical data from documents, streamlining and enhancing accuracy in review processes. These tools can identify key clauses and potential gaps in contracts, cross reference vendor documents with internal policies to generate preliminary risk assessments and flag regulatory discrepancies across different jurisdictions. By minimizing manual errors and accelerating review cycles, banks can reallocate human resources toward strategic oversight and risk management.

AI offers compliance a number of streamlining capabilities. With automated documentation generation, AI tools can create preliminary drafts of key compliance reports, policies and audit findings, allowing teams to focus on decision-making and strategic oversightAI, via continuous monitoring and updates, can track regulatory changes in real time and automate testing, ensuring that compliance measures remain up to date and effectiveAutomated testing can compare deliverables against internal standards and procedures, immediately flagging deviations. This shift to a proactive, technology-driven approach can ensure that regulatory and security demands are met with greater efficiency and accuracy with proper oversight.

Automate the process, not the principle

While AI offers tremendous potential to streamline compliance workflows, it’s crucial to strike a balance between automation and oversight. Effectively harnessing AI means not losing sight of a core tenet of compliance: maintaining independent judgment and credible challenge to business decisions.

A prudent step in AI adoption is back-testing. For example, a bank might feed its AI tool a set of historical examination findings or regulatory exam manual case studies and compare the results against human examiners’ findings. This helps reveal whether the AI tool correctly identifies key issues and flags potential red flags. In another scenario, a compliance officer can intentionally throw tricky scenarios at the AI model — such as Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering alerts or fair lending cases — where contextual judgement is necessary. This kind of back-testing can reveal whether the tool’s output aligns with real-world regulatory expectations and the bank’s compliance strategy.

Banks that successfully integrate AI into their compliance operations tend to follow the mantra: Automate the process, not the principle. They automate what they can to gain efficiency and accuracy, but they uphold the principles of thorough oversight, ethical conduct and accountability. Early movers are already seeing results.

Emily Kolm, senior manager of enterprise risk at Omaha, Nebraska-based American National Bank, says: integrating AI into her institution’s framework helped the bank “gain the ability to transform how we analyze third-party relationships, improving our capacity to evaluate and address risks.” Her team used Kobalt Labs to enhance efficiency in identifying potential vulnerabilities — a shift that Kolm says enabled a more proactive and data-driven approach to risk management.

This kind of implementation reflects a broader trend: Banks are treating AI as a compliance co-pilot, not a replacement.

Making AI work for compliance

AI complianceFor banks looking to modernize their compliance operations, a strategic roadmap is key — especially as regulatory scrutiny and operational complexity increase.

Start by focusing on areas where AI can have the most immediate and measurable effect — such as documentation-heavy processes where manual reviews slow operations and regulatory expectations are clearly defined. These workflows are prime candidates for automation. From there, select AI solutions that are adaptable and capable of learning from team input, integrating with existing systems and scaling alongside evolving regulatory requirements. Finally, implement strong governance and guardrails by setting clear policies on who can use AI tools, how outputs are reviewed and where human judgment remains essential. This ensures AI enhances compliance efforts without compromising oversight or accountability.

Lincoln Savings Bank, a midsize community bank based in Reinbeck, Iowa, tested multiple solutions. They piloted an AI tool from Kobalt for compliance and third-party oversight and reported measurable improvements. The bank’s risk and compliance team reported an accurate and thorough identification of compliance gaps, as well as a reduction in review time per document from multiple days to 15 minutes, with an improvement in accuracy.

“Leveraging AI through Kobalt is allowing us to significantly expand our risk oversight without the addition of resources,” says William B. Peek, chief risk officer at Lincoln Savings Bank. “AI doesn’t make the risk decision but helps our team see the more critical and pertinent details while eliminating low value, non-value-added noise that consumes capacity.”

The integration of AI into compliance operations represents a fundamental shift in how banks manage risk and adhere to regulatory standards. This will require all risk professionals to be conversant with AI as a tool, its capabilities and its limitations. With thoughtful implementation, the results are well worth the investment — freeing up teams to focus on higher-value work, improving accuracy and enabling a more agile response to regulatory change.

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ABA Banking Journal: Resolution to overturn OCC bank merger rule clears House

May 20, 2025 

ABA, associations urge lawmakers to finalize deal on debt ceiling

The House voted 220-207 today in favor of a Senate resolution to overturn a 2024 final rule that changed how the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reviews proposed bank mergers. The resolution was adopted by the Senate earlier this month and now heads to President Trump for his signature.

The OCC last year adopted a rule that made several revisions to how it reviews merger proposals, including ending a practice of automatically approving merger applications on the 15th day after the close of the comment period unless the agency takes action to remove the filing for expedited processing. S.J. Res. 13 would negate the rule under the Congressional Review Act.

The House approved the resolution after debate. In a letter to House leaders, the American Bankers Association urged support for the legislation, saying the OCC did not address several concerns raised before the rule was adopted by the agency. ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols applauded lawmakers in a statement following the vote.

The resolution “will provide regulators with the opportunity to reenvision the framework governing bank mergers so that it more effectively promotes competition while allowing banks to better serve their customers,” Nichols said. “We look forward to President Trump signing this important resolution into law.

In addition to the resolution, the OCC earlier this month issued an interim final rule restoring its streamlined process for reviewing bank merger applications.

Full Article


CISA News: Microsoft confirms May Windows 10 updates trigger BitLocker recovery

May 16, 2025 / Sergiu Gatlan

Microsoft confirms May Windows 10 updates trigger BitLocker recovery

Microsoft has confirmed that some Windows 10 and Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 systems will boot into BitLocker recovery after installing the May 2025 security updates.

The BitLocker Windows security feature encrypts storage drives to prevent data theft, and Windows computers typically enter BitLocker recovery mode after events like TPM (Trusted Platform Module) updates or hardware changes to regain access to protected drives.

​Today, Microsoft confirmed the issue and said it's investigating reports that "a small number" of Windows 10 PCs display BitLocker recovery screens after installing the KB5058379 update.

"On affected devices, upon installing the update, Windows might fail to start enough times to trigger an Automatic Repair. On devices with BitLocker enabled, BitLocker requires the input of your BitLocker recovery key to initiate an Automatic Repair," the company said in a Windows release health update.

Impacted users who check the Windows Event Viewer will also see LSASS errors and installation failure events with 0x800F0845 errors in the System event log. Additionally, while some devices will enter a BitLocker recovery loop after Startup Repair fails to initiate an automatic repair, others will successfully roll back to the previously installed update after several attempts to install KB5058379.

You can retrieve the BitLocker recovery key by logging into the BitLocker recovery screen portal with your Microsoft account. This support page provides further details on how to find the recovery key in Windows.

Microsoft says it's investigating the issue and will provide an update once more information regarding the root cause becomes available.

BitLocker recovery screen

Microsoft's acknowledgment of this issue comes after many Windows users and admins have reported seeing devices unexpectedly enter the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and displaying a BitLocker recovery screen after installing the KB5058379 cumulative update released as part of the May 2025 Patch Tuesday.

Currently, these reports point to a wide variety of system configurations and devices from Lenovo, Dell, and HP being affected, so it's unclear if this is caused by a specific hardware or software issue.

"The latest KB5058379 released May 13 quality update failed in Windows 10 devices. Some devices it caused triggering bitlocker key window after restart," one user said on Microsoft's forums.

"We have about a half dozen laptops that experienced various intermittent issues after receiving the same KB - some require bitlocker keys to start up, others refusing to start at all," a Windows admin added on Reddit.

To get back into Windows on systems stuck at a BitLocker recovery prompt, you can try disabling the Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) from the BIOS. If that fails, as Microsoft support advises, you can also try to disable Secure Boot, Virtualization Technologies (if the issue persists), or Firmware Protection.

In August 2024, Microsoft fixed another issue that triggered BitLocker recovery prompts on Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server systems after installing the July 2024 Windows security updates.

Two years earlier, in August 2022, Windows devices were impacted by similar issues after the KB5012170 security update caused some devices to boot into the BitLocker recovery screen.

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UPDATES

2026 Scenes of South Dakota Photo Contest

Photo contest

The SDBA has launched the 2026 Scenes of South Dakota Calendar Photo Contest! We invite amateur photographers from across the state to showcase the beauty and heritage of South Dakota through your lenses. 

We would love to see a variety of submissions to choose from! Landscapes, camping, farming & ranching, plants, animals, architecture, urban, rural, seasonal (especially winter!), hunting, fishing...you name it!

Submit your photos

 


2025 Women of Impact Award

WOI 2025

Do you know an outstanding woman in banking who has made a significant contribution to her organization, community, and industry?

If so, nominate her for the "SDBA Women of Impact Award"! These awards will be presented at the 2025 Lead Strong: Women in Banking event on September 10 in Sioux Falls, SD.

Submit your nomination by August 1.

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EVENTS

Graduate School of Banking

July 27-August 8, 2025

May be an image of textLess than TWO WEEKS remain to apply for the Graduate School of Banking!

The school’s curriculum reflects the contemporary trends impacting the financial services industry. Core courses address broad areas of finance, marketing, management and the environment in which banks operate while elective courses allow students to customize their learning experience. Graduates of the GSB program also receive the prestigious Certificate of Executive Leadership from the Wisconsin School of Business Professional and Executive Development — the highest level certificate they offer.

Learn more and apply HERE.


2025 National School for Experienced Ag Bankers

June 23-26, 2025 | Spearfish

Ag School 2025The National School for Experienced Ag Bankers is a seminar for experienced ag bankers who want to further develop their ag lending skills, learn new skills, confirm existing methodology and meet fellow bankers who share the same career path. Taught by a nationally-recognized faculty of bankers, academics and other real-world ag banking practitioners, this program is focused on ag lending opportunities and challenges that are relevant to ag bankers from across the United States.

Details & Registration

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2025 SDBA Ag Credit Conference

July 22-23, 2025 | Pierre

Ag Conf 2025The 2025 SDBA Agricultural Credit Conference brings together key professionals from the financial and agricultural industries to discuss critical issues related to agricultural financing and credit accessibility. This event provides a forum to examine emerging trends, tackle common challenges, and explore opportunities for collaboration that enhance the resilience and long-term success of the agricultural sector. Through expert presentations, engaging discussions, panel sessions, and a well-rounded exhibit hall, attendees will gain valuable knowledge on navigating agricultural lending challenges, managing risks, and seizing opportunities for growth in this essential industry.

Details & Registration


Online Education

online ed

Participating in learning opportunities outside the bank can be challenging. Take advantage of the SDBA's extensive selection of webinars and on-demand training to enhance your banking expertise directly from your computer.

GSB Online Seminars
OnCourse Learning
SBS Institute
ABA Training


Compliance Alliance logo
podcast

Banking Matters Podcast

Episode 100

Chris Furlow, President and CEO, Texas Bankers Association

In this landmark interview marking the 100th episode of Banking Matters, host Elizabeth Holtrop interviews Chris Furlow, President and CEO of the Texas Bankers Association. They discuss the current landscape of banking, including TBA’s litigation efforts against regulatory overreach, legislative initiatives to support community banks in Texas and across the nation, and the implications of cryptocurrency and stable coins on the banking industry. The discussion emphasizes the importance of advocacy and engagement among bankers to navigate these challenges and shape the future of banking.

Learn how to put compliance management solutions from Compliance Alliance to work for your bank, by contacting (888) 353-3933 or [email protected] and ask for our Membership Team. For timely compliance updates, subscribe to Bankers Alliance’s email newsletters.

 

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