Friday, March 29, 2024

Professional Membership

You work for an OBA member bank and receive all the benefits that normally come with that privilege. But most bankers don’t clearly understand the direct connection between their jobs, their salaries, benefits and bonuses and the political process. The Professional Membership program is intended to help bankers understand that relationship more clearly. In turn, that helps us help you.

Here’s your bottom line: EVERYTHING your bank does or is prevented from doing begins in either Washington, D.C. or Oklahoma City. In order to continue to be successful, bankers need to be a part of our collective grass-roots effort to make banker views known to the people who make the rules you work by.

What does that mean? From time to time we’ll ask you to help us by sending a letter or e-mail to your Senator or Representative about an issue that affects your profession. We’ll even provide you with a draft message that you can deliver.
Making your voice heard – either in support of or opposition to legislative or regulatory proposals that affect your bank, your job and your salary – is the primary way we help shape your future. We won’t ask often, but we will ask.

Why should you join? What’s in it for you if you do?

There’s another reason to help bankers develop a better understanding of how important they are to Oklahoma’s success.

For whatever reason, you’ve chosen to become a part of the most important profession in America. Bankers don’t just perform tasks like opening new accounts, cashing checks or making loans. You’re dream catchers! You help your customers “catch their dreams” – whether it’s buying a home, sending a child to college or starting a new business.

You make things happen, and as a Professional OBA Member you have a unique opportunity to help shape the future of your profession and your job that not many other groups of professionals have.

Professional Member Programs

Scholarship Program

Each year, the Oklahoma Bankers Association awards a $1,000 scholarship to an incoming freshman who has a parent, grandparent, sibling or spouse who is a Professional Member of the Association.

The student must enroll in an accredited Oklahoma institution of higher education. The applicant must also be graduating from an Oklahoma high school. A panel of bankers will select the winning applicant.

Click here to access the application for the 2024 scholarship. Applications are due April 15, 2024. Contact Megan McGuire with any questions.