Minority Depository Institutions Program
Preservation and Promotion of Minority Depository Institutions
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Report to Congress for 2016

Outreach, Training, and Educational Programs

The FDIC’s regional offices also held outreach, training and educational programs for MDIs through individual meetings, conference calls and banker roundtables.

In 2016, topics of discussion for these sessions included many of those listed above, as well as the FDIC’s national MDI program; the FDIC’s Community Banking Initiative, including the availability of Technical Assistance Videos; corporate governance; strategic planning; director responsibilities; compliance guidance; concentration risk management; and bank merger and acquisition.

The FDIC also sponsored a Community Banking Conference in April 2016, Strategies for Long-Term Success, a daylong discussion regarding future challenges and opportunities for community banks in the United States.

The conference acknowledged the importance of this sector in providing basic banking services and credit for consumers, farms, and small businesses across the United States. The FDIC provided a historical perspective on banking industry consolidation, concluding that community banks have evolved, changed, and grown to meet the needs of their customers and the challenges of the market, demonstrating their resilience in the aftermath of the recent financial crisis and recession.

Four separate panels addressed some of the challenges facing the sector: the viability of the community banking model; regulatory developments as they pertain to community banks; how technology is affecting these institutions; and how community banks are managing ownership structure and succession planning.

As the vast majority of FDIC-insured MDIs are community banks, these topics were timely and relevant. The MDI banking sector was well represented at the conference with approximately 20 CEOs and MDI trade representatives in attendance, including two MDI CEOs who served as panelists.

The FDIC emphasized three areas intended to be helpful to community banks: focusing on the principle of tailored supervision, appropriate to the size and complexity of an institution; continuing to build a robust technical assistance program, designed to provide information that can help bankers and their board members address hot-button regulatory and accounting issues; and supporting the creation of de novo community banks.

Since the conference, the FDIC has received several inquiries from groups interested in organizing a de novo MDI.