Thank you Don Sorchych for giving us the Sonoran News and it’s mission of being a community watchdog! You will be missed!
Letter to Sonoran News;
Banks and financial institutions are support the vitality and livelihoods of millions of Arizonians. In our Grand Canyon State, over 20 banks are headquartered, 65 other banks have branches here, and nearly 50,000 people are employed in financial institutions. Even more so, more than $170 billion in deposits—from paychecks, and in savings and college funds—are protected in Arizona’s banks, and almost 80,000 home loans were originated, meaning that hundreds of thousands of Arizonans were able to buy their first home or settle with their family in our state.
Banks are a core part of our communities—and local institutions, all the more so. Local banks, that know community members personally support the development of small businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors, create jobs and grow the local economy. Local institutions’ ability to provide credit for their community members have helped Arizonans like my family: we immigrated from Mexico in 1996, and purchased our first home in the Maryvale community, with mortgage help from the banks that served our area.
However, President Joe Biden has nominated an individual to a key regulatory position that would undermine the effectiveness of community banks in favor of a top-down, federal government-centered approach. Saule Omarova, a Cornell University Law Professor nominated head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) would end community banking as we know it.
Omarova’s past scholarship and advocacy has focused on creating a virtual monopoly of all banking deposits handled by the Federal Reserve, writing in 2020, “a single most effective solution… is to reform the composition of the Fed’s liabilities, by replacing commercial bank reserve accounts with universally available deposit accounts.” This would ultimately discourage consumers from making deposits at our local banks, which would significantly undermine the ability for those financial institutions to offer loans and mortgages.
As Saule Omarova’s nomination soon comes before the Senate, I must urge our Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) to strongly consider the impact her leadership on our state’s banks, and vote “no” on her nomination. The ability for Arizonans to access credit—and our state’s economic development—depends on it.
Thank you,
Nicholas Martin
Cave Creek
