At ICBA Securities, we provide community bankers the tools to grow their investments.
Powered by our exclusive broker/dealer The Baker Group, ICBA Securities connects community bankers to investment portfolio and balance sheet management tools, as well as education resources.
Learn How ICBA Securities Can Help Your Community Bank
Reach us by phone at 866-843-4222
Upcoming Events
Events coming soon.
ThinkTECH x CAFE Fintech Showcase: Advancing Financial Equity Through Innovation Webinar
Join us for an exclusive showcase event presented by ICBA Innovation in conjunction with the Center for Accelerating Financial Equity (CAFE) Fintech Accelerator. CAFE, a valued member of our accelerator network, whose dedicated focus is on advancing financial health and wellness, particularly for low- to moderate-income (LMI) communities.
Unlike our broader accelerator programs, CAFE’s mission centers on this important and specific topic. This event is an excellent opportunity for anyone interested in how innovative technology can help better serve these important customer segments.
Discover how fintech is transforming financial wellness for LMI communities and learn from leaders at the forefront of inclusive financial innovation.
What to Expect:
- Meet Innovative Fintech Founders: Engage directly with entrepreneurs who are developing technologies aimed at expanding access to capital, enhancing financial literacy, and promoting economic mobility.
- Discover Practical Solutions: Explore fintech innovations that can be integrated into your bank's operations to better serve underserved populations and drive community growth.
Presenting Companies:
- BOSS.Tech: Helps banks increase small business deposits with branded, build-free modern fintech that enables businesses to organize fragmented income, expenses, and operations, and better manage their businesses. Helps low- to moderate- income (LMI) owned small businesses demonstrate financial health, access capital, and other services.
- Free Money Meister: A college-affordability platform that helps students find and manage best-fit external scholarships while enabling financial institutions to support customers and communities with education-funding solutions. By helping close college funding gaps, Free Money Meister expands access to financial resources for LMI students and families.
- Heka: Prevents AI-driven consumer fraud losses for financial institutions. By distinguishing fraudsters from legitimate applicants, Heka provides consumers with safer, more equitable access to financial services.
- Linker Finance: Streamlines business onboarding, launches modern digital banking for commercial and retail customers, and helps banks grow deposits, all without requiring a core conversion. Offers technology for a critical part of the financial ecosystem: the community institutions that support local businesses and families across the country.
- McCarthy Hatch FSAI: Analyzes consumer complaint narratives and regulatory signals to help financial institutions identify emerging patterns of consumer harm, from overdraft spirals to credit reporting errors to unauthorized charges, faster. By surfacing these risk patterns earlier, institutions can remediate problems before they cascade, reducing financial damage to LMI consumers who are often first and hardest hit by compliance failures.
- SilverShield: Helps financial institutions stop scams before money is lost by giving members instant, 24/7 guidance through text and email while equipping internal teams with real-time scam intelligence. Designed for accessibility and ease of use, SilverShield helps people at greatest risk recognize threats, avoid losses, and protect their financial well-being.
- Voyager AI: Precision AI that helps community financial institutions say yes to more commercial loans and grow through relationships. When communities have healthy financial systems, they go beyond!
- WealthMeUp: Embed investing products directly into digital banking experiences, enabling people to start investing with as little as $1 and grow their accounts through everyday shopping rewards. We advance financial wellness by turning financial education into action and make wealth building accessible from the first dollar, using everyday shopping rewards to help members invest even when disposable income is limited.
Duration: 60-minutes
Presented live and recorded on 11/12/26.
BSA Hot Topics 2026 Webinar
Explore the latest BSA/AML hot topics affecting community banks, including emerging risks, enforcement action trends, and recent regulatory developments. This timely session will provide practical insights to help your bank stay informed, strengthen compliance efforts, and respond effectively to an evolving regulatory environment.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify emerging BSA/AML risks affecting community banks.
- Examine recent enforcement trends and regulatory developments.
- Apply practical insights to strengthen compliance efforts and respond to the evolving regulatory environment.
Duration: 60-minutes
Presented live and recorded on 11/17/2026.
Modern Financial Services Simplified Webinar
New technologies and concepts are impacting community banks, and many bankers do not have a working knowledge of the evolving financial products and services.
Artificial intelligence. Bitcoin. Blockchain. Stablecoins. Crypto. Decentralized finance. Disintermediation. These are critical components of the modern financial services system, and they differ from traditional community banking.
Given their growth and expectations for continued prevalence, and impact on community banking, every community banker should have a fundamental understanding of these items and what they mean for the community banking industry. This session gives a straightforward and simple explanation of modern financial services and how they are currently and may continue to impact community banks.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand key modern financial services concepts.
- Differentiate modern and traditional banking models.
- Assess emerging technologies’ impact on community banks.
- Identify key opportunities, risks, and strategic implications.
Duration: 60-minutes
Presented live and recorded on 11/18/27.
Demystifying Digital Assets: Beyond the Token with Stablecore Webinar
This session will connect technology to banking needs, explore potential use cases, implementation considerations, and the questions bankers should ask as they evaluate emerging solutions. Topics will range from payments and customer experience to integration, operational readiness, and risk management.
Whether your bank is beginning to explore digital money or considering its next steps, Beyond the Token with Stablecore will help you assess the possibilities with greater clarity and bring a practical community banking perspective to what comes next.
Duration: 90-minutes Presented live and recorded on 11/19/26.
ICBA Securities Overview
ICBA Securities Corporation (ICBA Securities) was founded in 1989. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ICBA, the nation’s largest trade association for community banks.
ICBA Securities has a commitment to return its profits to the industry. It does so in the form of royalties, sponsorships, or dividends. It has reinvested over $50 million back to its affiliated state/regional partners or to support advocacy at ICBA.
Endorsements
We are proud to be endorsed by 34 state community banking associations.
ICBA Securities provides investment portfolio and balance sheet management tools through The Baker Group, our exclusively endorsed broker/dealer.
About The Baker Group
Founded in 1979 and headquartered in Oklahoma City, The Baker Group is one of the nation’s largest independently owned broker/dealer, specializing in investment portfolio management, interest rate risk management, balance sheet strategies and education for community banks nationwide. The firm is committed to providing honest, insightful, and client-focused solutions to help community banks manage balance sheet risks and achieve high performance.
Education Opportunities Through ICBA Securities, powered by The Baker Group
Through The Baker Group, ICBA Securities provides an education platform tailored to the needs of community banks. Representatives from The Baker Group attend and speak at numerous state community banking conferences, seminars and meetings, conducting an average of 50 educational events per year.
ICBA Securities and The Baker Group also offer speakers who can cover a range of topics pertinent to community bank audiences. See below for a summary of the topics currently available:
Note: The speaking calendar may fill up early and therefore speaking requests cannot be guaranteed. Please note that all speaking requests are filled as resources are available.
Speaking Opportunities
2026 Economic Overview and Fed Policy Outlook
With the Federal Reserve delivering a total of 175 basis points of rate cuts starting in late 2024 and resuming in late 2025, the Fed now faces inflation above 2% and a slow labor market.
The Fed is divided between those that see employment as the greatest risk and those that see inflation as the greatest risk. In this presentation, we will take a look at the macroeconomic environment, including the key data points the Federal Reserve monitors to set monetary policy.
Investment Portfolio Strategies for Today’s Rate Environment
In today’s dynamic rate environment, a disciplined investment process is more critical than ever. With the yield curve steepening in 2025, driven by the Fed cutting interest rates 100 basis points in the later part of 2024 and an additional 75 basis points in late 2025, community banks have a unique opportunity to optimize their portfolios.
This session explores current investment trends and proven strategies to build a portfolio that enhances net interest margins while aligning with your bank’s broader asset/liability management objectives.
State of the Industry and Regulatory Hot Topics
Since the pandemic, the banking industry and regulatory landscape have been anything but stagnant. An aggressive rising rate environment set the state for declining margins and bank performance alongside liquidity challenges.
More recently, Fed rate cuts have allowed banks to reduce cost of funds, increase asset yields and see margin expansion. This session will examine the most recent community banking trends using the latest call report data as well as a dive into the hot topics from the regulatory agencies.
Playbook for the 2026 Rate Landscape
There is a relative consensus that we are nearing the end of the rate-cutting period begun in 2024. Whether there are zero, two or four rate cuts this year, the likely terminal rate for Fed Funds will be higher than historical norms.
This has myriad implications for community banks, both balance sheet and income statement. We will provide an update on the market expectations and suggest some strategies to take advantage of the likely shape of the yield curve.
Today’s Liquidity Management Best Practices
Liquidity risk management remains a top priority for regulators and a critical focus area for banks. This session examines best practices related to Liquidity Risk Management including liquidity cash flow forecasting, liquidity stress testing, and contingency funding planning. In addition, the discussion will cover current liquidity trends and pressing hot topics in today's banking landscape.
Asset/Liability Management in Today’s Environment
In 2022, the Federal Reserve launched an aggressive tightening cycle to combat post-pandemic inflation, reshaping the economic landscape.
As we move through 2026, the banking industry faces fresh challenges amid stabilizing yet elevated interest rates, policy shifts, and growing concerns about a potential economic slowdown.
Senior management continues to navigate an environment marked by elevated interest rates and the looming threat of an economic downturn. This session will examine and discuss all these concerns and present strategies to better prepare your institution for the uncertainty ahead.
Today’s Interest Rate Risk Management Best Practices
Interest rate risk management has transformed over the years from a mere compliance exercise into a sophisticated, dynamic, and ongoing process.
This session explores the best practices in Interest Rate Risk Management including key assumption development and documentation, back testing, and sensitivity testing of critical assumptions.
Participants will also gain insights into prevailing interest rate risk trends and emerging hot topics shaping the current environment.
Board of Directors: Demystifying Your Bank’s Investment Portfolio
In an era of heightened regulatory scrutiny, board members are required to have a better understanding of their bank’s investment portfolio.
This session will dive into the following: bond basics, why banks have investment portfolios, regulatory expectations of the bond portfolio, basic bond accounting treatment, and types of bonds owned by community banks and board reporting.
Board of Directors: Interest Rate Risk Management 101
Effective board oversight is the cornerstone of sound risk management. The board is responsible for overseeing the bank’s interest rate risk management program.
This session will educate board members on the basics of interest rate risk including interest rate modeling concepts, key modeling assumptions and the regulatory expectations of a sound interest rate risk program.
Baker In-Person Schools
Interest Rate Risk Management
Baker Virtual Education Series
Baker Seminars
ALM and Investment Strategies Seminar
Bloomington, MN
JW Marriott Mall of America
Board of Directors
Aza Bittinger
Community Bankers Association of Ohio
Columbus
Ohio
Thomas Bates, Jr.
President & CEO
Legends Bank of Clarksville
TN
Brenda Foster
Chairman
President and CEO
