US House Passes Main Street Capital Access Act with Strong Bipartisan Support

07/22/26

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Main Street Capital Access Act, a sweeping banking package designed to promote new bank formation, modernize bank supervision and provide meaningful regulatory relief for well-managed financial institutions. The legislation passed by a vote of 270-155, with one member voting present, and now moves to the Senate for consideration. Importantly, 56 House Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the bill, demonstrating strong bipartisan recognition that community banks should not be regulated under the same framework as the nation's largest and most complex financial institutions.

OBL was particularly pleased that Ohio Congressman Democrat Greg Landsman voted in favor of the legislation. OBL worked directly with Congressman Landsman and his staff to explain how the bill would benefit Ohio banks, their customers and the communities they serve. We appreciate his willingness to listen to Ohio bankers, evaluate the legislation on its merits and join a bipartisan coalition supporting a more appropriately tailored regulatory system. He joined all the Republican members of the Ohio delegation voting in favor of the bill.

At its core, the Main Street Capital Access Act recognizes that regulation and supervision should reflect a bank's size, risk profile and business model, a main thesis OBL has been pushing for decades. The legislation would require federal banking regulators to consider those factors when issuing new regulations and making supervisory decisions. This would help ensure that traditional community banks are not automatically subjected to requirements designed for institutions with much larger, more complex or systemically significant operations.

Several provisions would provide especially significant benefits to community banks. The bill would raise the asset threshold under the Federal Reserve's Small Bank Holding Company Policy Statement from $3 billion to $25 billion, substantially expanding the number of community bank holding companies eligible for its more flexible capital treatment. It would also increase eligibility for the Community Bank Leverage Ratio framework from $10 billion to $15 billion and lower the statutory CBLR range from 8-10% to 6-8%, giving regulators greater flexibility to maintain strong capital standards without forcing qualifying community banks into unnecessarily complex risk-based capital calculations.

The legislation also includes major examination reforms. Well-managed and well-capitalized institutions with less than $6 billion in assets could receive alternating limited-scope examinations and elect to combine certain safety and soundness, information technology, cybersecurity and consumer compliance examinations. The bill would also raise the threshold for eligibility for an 18-month examination cycle from $3 billion to $6 billion. These changes could reduce duplicative examinations and allow both banks and regulators to concentrate resources on material risks.

Other provisions would bring greater consistency and accountability to the supervisory process. The legislation directs the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council to develop more objective and quantifiable criteria for CAMELS ratings, establishes an independent examination review office to consider material supervisory determinations and prohibits regulators from using broadly defined "reputational risk" as a supervisory factor. Together, these provisions would provide banks with clearer expectations, a more meaningful appeals process and greater confidence that examinations will remain focused on legitimate safety-and-soundness concerns.

The bill would also help strengthen community bank funding. It expands the amount of reciprocal deposits that qualifying institutions may hold without those deposits being treated as brokered and provides targeted treatment for certain custodial deposits at banks with less than $10 billion in assets. These provisions would help community banks attract and retain local deposits, diversify funding sources and put more capital to work supporting families, farms and small businesses.

Finally, the legislation seeks to reverse the long-term decline in new bank formation. It establishes a three-year phase-in of federal capital requirements for de novo institutions and provides additional flexibility for new rural community banks. It also requires regulators to determine within 30 days whether a merger or acquisition application is complete and generally issue a final decision within 90 days, bringing greater certainty and predictability to the application process.

House passage represents an important step toward creating a regulatory framework that protects safety and soundness while recognizing the relationship-based business model of community banking. OBL will continue working with Ohio's senators and our national partners to build support for the legislation as it moves to the Senate.