Jennifer Ahrendt, 46, of Trent, S.D., has been sentenced following a guilty plea entered on May 21 for the crime of theft by exploitation of an elder or adult with a disability, a Class 4 Felony, according to a press release from South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg's Office.

The FDIC and the OCC on Tuesday approved a long-awaited set of changes to the Volcker Rule simplifying the rule’s compliance burden and better targeting its effects toward indended activities. The final rule streamlines and tailors the Volcker Rule by focusing its restriction on proprietary trading and investments in covered funds on banks with “significant” and “moderate” trading activities. Banks with limited trading assets and liabilities of less than $1 billion will have a rebuttable presumption of compliance with the Volcker Rule. Once approved by the Federal Reserve, SEC and CFTC, the changes will take effect on Jan. 1, 2020, with mandatory compliance not required until Jan. 1, 2021.

“We appreciate the actions taken today by the FDIC and OCC, which have started the agencies’ process of finalizing sensible reforms to the Volcker Rule that will help banks better serve their customers and the broader economy,” said ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols. “These improvements will allow bank supervisors to focus on systemic risk, while providing the tailored and precise oversight that was the Volcker Rule’s original purpose.”

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg along with the South Dakota Retailers Association are alerting businesses to be on the lookout for a credit card scam which is impacting the state. 

Multiple South Dakota businesses have been contacted by out-of-state entities looking to purchase goods. The orders initially appear to be legitimate, but scammers are attempting to pay with fraudulent or stolen credit cards. 

More than 150 ag bankers from across South Dakota are attending the SDBA's Agricultural Credit Conference today and tomorrow in Pierre. The annual conference was originally scheduled for April but postponed due to a snow storm. 

Following a pre-conference workshop by Farmer Mac yesterday afternoon and an opening reception last night, the conference kicked off this morning with an update from Washington, D.C., by Dan Martini, vice president of congressional relations and political affairs with the ABA. 

A group of 13 Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee, including South Dakota's Sen. Mike Rounds, on Tuesday urged the federal banking agencies to accelerate implementation of regulatory reforms made by the S. 2155 reform law, as well as other reforms that they said would enhance economic growth. “More can still be done to support the economic expansion,” they wrote.

A group of 51 state bankers associations, including the SDBA, wrote to congressional leaders on Tuesday calling for a review of the credit union industry to determine whether it is living up to its statutory mission of serving people of “small means.” The groups also called for a thorough examination of the National Credit Union Administration and its oversight of the credit union industry.

Citing research from a recent Federal Financial Analytics report commissioned by ABA, the groups raised concerns that modern credit unions are actually contributing to greater economic inequality and endangering taxpayers by increasingly providing services to high-income customers rather than low- to moderate-income ones, making high-risk loans and even buying up taxpaying banks. Even more alarming, the report found that the NCUA has enabled the credit union industry to creep far beyond its statutory authority, while allowing regulatory capital requirements and other safety and soundness rules to become substandard.

As a result of ongoing advocacy by the industry to communicate the significant operational challenges and potential economic consequences arising from the current expected credit loss standard, the Financial Accounting Standards Board voted last week to delay the implementation of CECL for some—but not all—companies.

The ABA is calling on FASB to expand the extension to include banks of all sizes and continues to urge bankers to contact their lawmakers to support legislative efforts that would delay CECL’s implementation. Congress is currently considering two bills—S. 1564 and H.R. 3182—that would delay the standard so that a quantitative impact study can be conducted to determine the full implications CECL will have on the availability of credit in communities nationwide. Contact your lawmakers now.

With so much up in the air in this regulatory environment, one thing that remains constant is the need for a commitment to compliance. Therefore, a strong understanding of the continually shifting landscape is essential. More regulations? Less regulations? You and your compliance staff can handle it by using knowledge learned from attending the SDBA 2019 Compliance Workshop. The training is geared toward compliance professionals including those who may run their compliance program alone and/or wear many hats at the bank. 

In a significant move, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) yesterday voted to propose a delay for the implementation of the current expected credit loss standard until January 2023 for certain companies. The delay would apply to small reporting companies (as defined by the SEC), non-SEC public companies and private companies.

Registration is now open for the SDBA's second annual LEAD STRONG: Women in Banking Conference. The event is set for Oct. 10, 2019, at the Sioux Falls Convention Center in Sioux Falls.  An optional networking reception will be held the night prior.

For Monica Sylvain, chief diversity officer at Louisiana-based IberiaBank, a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (or DE&I, as it's increasingly widely known) starts with building community. “It’s important to lead with the ‘I,’ or ‘inclusion,’” she says on the latest ABA Banking Journal Podcast, “having a sense of fairness, and [having] your employees feeling like they have a sense of belonging.” On the podcast, Sylvain discusses IberiaBank's approach to DE&I, including:

• Having a DE&I council comprising a broad cross-section of employees at all levels of the organization. “That group is really helping us to think through the things that are top of mind for our associates when they think about inclusion, when they think about equity, when they think about diversity.”
• Educating the bank’s leadership team—and its employees—on recognizing and understanding unconscious bias. “All of us as human beings have unconscious or implicit bias. [We] make snap judgment decisions,” she explains. “If you look at the neuroscience, we do it in nanoseconds.”
• The importance of including supplier diversity, as well as employee diversity, in the bank's DE&I framework.

Listen to the episode.

The role of an IT professional is ever-changing, especially in today’s environment. The SDBA Bank Technology Conference is designed to provide support as you keep on top of technology trends and scams, navigate the business of banking, and build and sustain your bank’s technology strategy. 

To mark Independence Day this week, this bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal explores the role of banking and finance in the American Revolution and the founding era. This week’s guest, John Steele Gordon, is an acclaimed economic historian whose books include Hamilton’s Blessing, The Great Game and An Empire of Wealth; he is also the ABA Banking Journal’s “From the Vault” columnist. In this episode, Gordon discusses:

• How not having any chartered banks prior to 1782 put the United States at a disadvantage during the Revolution.
• Conversely, how the Bank of England was a “secret weapon” for Britain during the war.
• The role of patriotic financiers like Robert Morris in achieving U.S. victory.
• The debates over a central bank in the post-revolutionary period and how they contributed to the development of the Constitution.

The financial regulatory agencies’ joint rule on private flood insurance acceptance took effect on Monday, July 1. The rule is the long-awaited implementation of the 2012 Biggert Waters Act provision that requires federally-regulated lending institutions to accept private flood insurance policies that meet certain statutory criteria, in satisfaction of the mandatory purchase requirement.

In a letter to the heads of the financial regulatory agencies last Friday, ABA called for greater clarification on how banks may serve businesses dealing with hemp—a low-THC strain of marijuana that was removed from the Controlled Substances Act by Congress as part of the 2018 Farm Bill.

In advance of Wednesday's 85th anniversary of the Federal Credit Union Act’s enactment, new research released on Tuesday found that credit unions are falling short of their mission to serve households of “small means.” In fact, according to the research by respected analyst Karen Shaw Petrou, credit union members are disproportionately from middle- and upper-income households, and credit unions’ lack of “mission compliance” deepens U.S. economic inequality.

Do you have a question about how the Federal Reserve System affects you? Wondering about economic disparities, regulating big banks or the Fed's recent interest rate decisions? Curious about how the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis gathers data and informs its work within the Federal Reserve System?

On June 16, the Vermillion Police Department (VPD) investigated the discovery of two fraudulent credit card “skimmers” at Pump & Pak, located at 629 Stanford St. in Vermillion, according to a report by the VPD. Staff at the business noted customers’ comments about how the countertop card readers did not feel quite right and ultimately found that a “second face” had been installed over the top of the readers. The VPD has retrieved those items as evidence and has determined that their intended purpose was to record and/or transmit credit card information fraudulently. Investigation into the incident is continuing, including an attempt to determine exactly when the skimmers were installed. The readers at Pump & Pak are no longer believed to be compromised since the removal of the devices.

If you are an amateur photographer and would like the opportunity to have your creativity displayed in homes and businesses across South Dakota, this is your chance.

Send the SDBA your photos of farms, barns, agricultural activities, historical South Dakota locations, county fairs, carnivals, parades or festivals, fall colors, winter snowfalls, spring flowers, summer fun, etc.. Any photo that shows the history and beauty of the great state of South Dakota qualifies. All photos submitted will be judged and the top photos will be featured throughout the 2020 Scenes of South Dakota calendar. The deadline to submit a photo is July 29, 2019. Photo submission form. 

June 15 is Elder Abuse Awareness Day in South Dakota, which provides an opportunity for communities to promote a better understanding of abuse and neglect of the older population throughout the state.