1ST NATIONAL BANK OF SCOTIA PRESIDENT SPEAKS AT INTERNATIONAL BANKING SUMMIT

SCOTIA, NY (November 14, 2014) — 1st National Bank of Scotia President and CEO John Buhrmaster was one of seven speakers who presented yesterday at the 25th Special Seminar on International Banking and Finance in Tokyo, Japan.

Buhrmaster, who currently serves as chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), the nation’s voice for more than 7,000 community banks of all sizes and charter types, spoke about “Community Banks and their Impact on Local Communities.”

During the event, which was sponsored by the Japan Financial News Company, Buhrmaster told an audience of international community bankers how American community banks are their region’s local economic engines.

“Perhaps nowhere do community banks stand out more than in the realm of small business,” he said. “Small-business lending is the mainstay of community banks, which need to lend to their small-business customers to be viable. And as small businesses themselves, community banks understand the needs of their borrowers.”

The fourth generation community banker, who was elected chairman of the ICBA inMarch, a yearlong term, also highlighted the headwinds his industry is facing at the current time, many of which were driven by the Wall Street financialcrisis.

“New regulations aimed at making the financial system safer, have inadvertently hurt the players that didn’t cause the crisis, community banks,” he noted. “The pendulum has unfortunately swung too far, and now excessive government regulations disproportionately burden community banks.”

Buhrmaster, who has served as 1^st National Bank of Scotia’s president since 2005, concluded his remarks by focusing on the community banking’s bright future and the industry’s ability to remake itself countless times in the past 200 years.

“The ICBA and community bankers like me are working hard to advocate our cause and help reverse the trend of overregulation and refocus the conversation on tiered regulation for community banks,” he said. “It simply makes sense. It makes sense for community banks, it makes sense for the U.S. and global economies, and it makes sense for American consumers.”