The impacts of bank regulations on rural banks go well beyond the dollar costs of compliance. Rules, regulations, and reporting requirements take immense amounts of time on the part of bank personnel, and the hours spent in understanding, implementing, and then following up on them are hours that cannot be used in dealing with the bank's customers. These time and people costs of regulation are playing a more significant role in diminishing the value of, and the return on, a rural bank charter than the more readily identifiable dollar costs. Relief and the return of banker morale and entrepreneurial spirit will come only from the elimination of most of the regulations bankers deal with.