ICBA LIVE Learning Labs

DeepSee.ai

Banks spend up to two weeks every month on HMDA reporting. It’s manual, repetitive work that buries experienced compliance staff. In this Learning Lab, you’ll see how agentic AI orchestrates the complex HMDA/CRA workflow and cuts reporting time from two weeks to a business day. This isn’t a concept demo. The use case is live and in produciton today.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand why HMDA/CRA reporting consumes so much time and expertise, and how to quantify that cost at your bank.
• How to evaluate which compliance and reporting processes are strong candidates for AI.
• How agentic AI cuts HMDA reporting from weeks to a business day, shown through a use case live in production today.

CreditQuant AI

Community banks are losing good commercial deals to speed. A borrower package lands as 40 PDFs, spreading eats three days, and by the time the memo reaches committee a credit union or non-bank lender has already sent a term sheet.

This lab walks the commercial credit workflow end to end and marks the seven steps where AI is genuinely ready today— intake, spreading, cross-document conflict detection, covenant extraction, and memo drafting with source traceability— and the three where it is not, including final risk rating and adverse action reasoning.

Led by a former commercial credit officer who underwrote 3,000+ C&I, CRE, and ABL deals at Santander and CoBank, this is a practitioner's view, not a technology overview. Every claim is tied to a real file example. Attendees leave with a one-page workflow map and a review protocol for checking AI-drafted spreads and credit memos before committee. We close by pulling apart a redacted AI-generated memo together and finding what it got wrong.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the seven steps in the commercial credit workflow where AI is production-ready today and the three steps where it is not.
• Evaluate AI-generated spreads and memos for the failure modes that matter in credit: unsourced figures, numbers left stale after a document is replaced, misconsolidated related entities, and conflicts across the tax returns and aging reports.
• Assess which parts of your own borrower document intake create the most rework and what has to be fixed upstream before any automation produces output your committee will trust.
   

Ben Udell Consulting LLC

Regardless of where a community bank is at on their AI journey, they all have adoption and enablement challenges with the learning and implementation of this transformational technology. Some employees are experimenting without direction. Others are waiting for formal permission.

Employees are debating about usage. Adoption is shifting employee growth while adding friction. Managers are unsure what to encourage. Risk leaders are worried about what they cannot see. Executives approve policies but do not consistently model the behaviors they expect from employees. Banks may purchase an approved tool, offer a single training session, and assume implementation is complete even though regular usage remains low.

This facilitated Learning Lab focuses on the people and organizational issues that determine whether responsible AI adoption succeeds. Participants will work through realistic community bank scenarios, compare approaches with peers, diagnose barriers, and understand actionable next steps.

Learning Objectives:

• Diagnose the leadership, communication, training, cultural, and accountability barriers preventing responsible AI adoption. Apply practical change-management principles to increase employee confidence, participation, and responsible everyday use.
• Understand common areas of friction through case studies and real-life situations to help you be a better leader with AI adoption and enablement.
• Identify AI enablement options that help leaders define actions, employee permissions, role-based training, manager reinforcement, and measures of progress.

CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CLA)

AI is a top-ranked issue for community banks in 2026, viewed through a dual lens as both an efficiency driver and a source of risk. This practical session cuts through the hype to show where AI delivers real, near-term value across the bank, front-office customer service, onboarding, compliant marketing, document processing, credit-and-analytics portfolio insights, and underwriting support. Participants leave with a concrete, low-regret plan to pilot AI responsibly, with governance and human oversight built in from day one.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the highest-value front-office and back-office AI use cases for a community bank and where each drives efficiency or revenue.
• Differentiate between genuine value and vendor hype using a governed pilot approach with clear metrics and human oversight.
• Learn how to buid a plan to get started with AI, including data readiness, model explainability, and vendor due diligence.

RiskScout

Alert volumes keep climbing, and hiring more staff to tackle them is easier said than done. This session shows how to stop treating every alert the same and start prioritizing by risk, so lean fraud teams catch more with the resources they already have.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to segment customers and accounts by risk so investigators focus where it matters most.
• Learn how cross-channel patterns across check, wire, ACH, and deposit activity reveal crime rings and funnel accounts that single-channel alerts miss.
• Learn how to use entity relationship visualization to catch coordinated fraud before it compounds.

Meridian Resilience, LLC

The most damaging cyber events often expose failures in recover, not security. Through the lens of high-profile disruptions affecting MGM, Change Healthcare, and Ascension, this session reveals the difference between having a recovery plan and successfully executing one. Participants will uncover the most common continuity and disaster recovery weaknesses, gain insight into the future of resilience expectations, and learn practical strategies designed specifically for community banks.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the recovery planning failures behind MGM, Change Healthcare, and Ascension, and recognize whether the same gaps exist in your own institution.
• Differentiate between a DR plan that passes an exam and a DR program that actually survives a real event, using five recovery assumptions that keep proving wrong.
• Identify three concrete, low-cost actions to close your recovery gap before the next exam cycle or event— and language to bring the case to your board.

OptimaFI

The last time credit conditions were this uncertain, most of today's credit officers hadn't run a full cycle yet. The benign era is over, and the early metrics confirm it.

This session gets practical about what community banks need to do right now: triage your portfolio before examiners do it for you, build contingency plans that hold up under scrutiny, and reinforce the credit culture that separates resilient institutions from reactive ones. We won't spend time on theory.

We'll work through specific steps, including stress indicators to watch, governance questions to get on record, and the board conversations that can't wait until the next quarterly review. You'll leave with a real game plan.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn why extended periods of benign performance can mask underlying vulnerabilities—and how banks can proactively assess and mitigate potential credit risk degradation.
• Identify the specific steps banks can employ to implement best-practice credit stress contingencies.
• Understand effective post-booking credit risk management protocols that allow for early detection and faster intervention, to reduce potential losses.

PTMA Funding

Local government investment pools hold a substantial share of public funds nationally, an estimated $931 billion at year end 2024. States established these pools to give smaller public entities, including cities, counties, school districts, and other subdivisions, access to diversification, liquidity, and professional oversight they could not easily achieve on their own. This scale creates a natural tension with community banks. State statute governs which investments a public entity may hold, and those same rules can direct funds into a pool just as easily as into a local bank, putting the two in competition for the same public dollars. That tension has increasingly moved into state legislatures, with a growing number of bills introduced since 2024 addressing how pools operate and how public funds may be invested. However, this landscape also presents an opportunity.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the scale and purpose of local government investment pools. Learn how large pools have grown nationally, and why states created them: to give smaller public entities access to diversification, liquidity, and professional oversight they could not achieve on their own.
• Identify the tension between pools and community banks, and how legislation is reshaping it.
• Identify the partnership opportunity pools represent for community banks.

RSM US

Cyberattacks, technology failures, and third-party disruptions have elevated operational resilience to a boardroom priority. This session equips chief audit executives, chief risk officers, and risk leaders to prepare boards and audit committees for effective oversight of cyber and operational resilience.

Attendees will explore the governance, business continuity, disaster recovery, cyber recovery, and crisis management capabilities that enable organizations to withstand and recover from disruption. Through an interactive exercise, participants will learn how to evaluate resilience capabilities and prioritize investments in a resource-constrained environment.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn to advise boards and audit committees on their governance responsibilities for cyber resilience, operational resilience, and disruption risk.
• Learn to scope control level detail and prepare your audit teams for business continuity, disaster recovery, and cyber recovery strategies.
• Apply a practical resilience investment framework through an interactive case study to prioritize limited cybersecurity and resilience resources, justify funding decisions, and maximize resilience outcomes within a constrained budget.

ICBA

Hear from a panel of bank regulatory experts about the policy and supervisory shifts that are currently taking place in Washington, DC, and learn how these changes are expected to impact community banks throughout the country. From evolving supervisory requirements to confronting threats from digital assets and novel entities, today’s safety and soundness environment is constantly shifting.

Learn how the current administration is approaching capital and liquidity requirements, risk management frameworks, and policy initiatives such as the integration of stablecoin and digital assets into the regulated banking system. This session is designed for community bankers to engage with the panelists, ask questions, and learn about how bank safety and soundness considerations are evolving both within and outside of the regulated perimeter.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how supervisory and policy priorities are expected to impact community banks.
• Understand what recent and expected regulatory changes will mean for your next safety and soundness examination preparation.
• Learn how banking regulators are viewing emerging risks and implementing policies that directly impact community banks.

Ben Udell Consulting LLC

Many bankers understand that AI is important but still struggle with the most basic question: What can I actually use it for? How can it save me hours of work? And how do I use AI to become a better banker? Most bankers have attended an AI session that talks through how important AI is, the risks you need to consider, and other high level topics. Most bankers have never actually seen how they can apply it to how they work every day.  

They know the technology can do more, but they have not seen enough practical examples to connect it to their everyday responsibilities. Other bankers have not started at all because AI still feels technical, risky, or disconnected from how they work.

This fast-moving session demonstrates how all bankers can make AI practical and accessible across departments. Participants will see examples involving communication, lending, policies and procedures, research, planning, training, customer conversations, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving. 

Learning Objectives:

• Identify practical every day opportunities to use AI across common banking responsibilities, including communication, research, meetings, data analysis, training, planning, and customer service.
• Apply a responsible prompting approach that provides AI with the context, source material, instructions, desired output, and review criteria needed to produce more useful results.
• Walk away with actual use cases they can apply immediately to their work.

ICBA CRA Solutions

This session will help community bank CEOs, directors, lending leaders, and compliance/risk executives see that strong lending performance and strong CRA outcomes often share the same foundation. The content will address a common challenge: lending penetration in low and moderate-income markets. The session helps leadership discern possible underwriting barriers, product gaps, incentive misalignment, and weak referral channels. The session is educational, neutral, and designed around executive decision-making, board governance, and measurable implementation.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify common factors associated with stronger lending distribution performance and favorable CRA examination outcomes.
• Evaluate how product design, community partnerships, delivery channels, and lending strategies influence market penetration and lending performance.
• Implement executive-level monitoring and governance practices that support sustainable lending growth and improved CRA outcomes.

Winthrop & Weinstine, P.A.

This learning lab provides community bankers with a comprehensive overview of fraud risks, prevention strategies, and regulatory developments. Topics include external fraud (third-party and first-party schemes) and internal fraud (employee investigations), along with practical fraud prevention measures for customers and bank operational considerations. Attendees will also explore contract considerations with both customers and vendors to mitigate fraud exposure.

The session features hypotheticals covering Ponzi schemes, agricultural financing fraud, check fraud (altered and forged), ACH fraud (debits, origination files, and unauthorized debit statements), wire transfer issues (including recent circuit court decisions on EFTA coverage), instant payments (real-time payments and Zelle), mobile and remote deposit capture fraud, debit and credit card fraud under Reg E and Reg Z (including chargebacks), and identity theft claims. The program also addresses bank-to-bank indemnities and recent federal actions combating fraud.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how fraud manifests across payment channels-checks, ACH, wires, instant payments, card transactions, and mobile deposits and the distinct legal frameworks (including Reg E, Reg Z, and UCC) that govern liability allocation for each.
• Identify practical fraud prevention strategies, contractual protections, and bank-to-bank indemnity structures that mitigate risk and strengthen the bank's position when fraud occurs.
• Learn how recent regulatory and judicial developments-including circuit court splits on EFTA coverage for wire transfers and new federal initiatives targeting payments fraud-to stay ahead of evolving compliance expectations.

CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen)

For most community banks the decision to "not do AI" is no longer available, because it is already present through vendor-embedded features, employee shadow use, and decisioning models. The real question is whether the institution is governing what is already in the building.

This lab walks the three doors AI enters through, shows leaders how to build visibility from logs and vendor disclosures they already have, and provides a lightweight, examiner-ready way to assess a use case across six risk domains and reach an approve, limit, pilot, or defer decision.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn the three ways AI enters the institution (vendor-embedded, employee shadow use, and decisioning) and explain why unmanaged visibility equals unmanaged risk.
• Apply a repeatable, risk-based AI assessment across six domains and produce a one-page decision record an examiner would accept. 
• Assign clear ownership across business, IT, security, and risk so AI decisions are governed rather than defaulted.

Wolf & Company P.C.

Bankers put much time into gathering data to assess their current situation, their place in market, their opportunities for success, and striking out on a strategic direction. They identify the KPIs for success. Then they finish their strategic plan and... crickets. KPIs are owned by executives. Waterfall KPIs are non-existent, or worse, work against strategy. This session will highlight ways to turn "row in the same direction," or "sing from the same sheet of music" into action.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify keys to building an effective and implementable strategy.
• Learn how to connect KPIs to every layer in your institution.
• Learn how to build a culture of total ownership.

Payman AI

An interactive workshop, not a lecture. Attendees will complete a live, structured readiness assessment, scoring their institution across five dimensions: data, workflows, staffing, compliance, and culture. Results are benchmarked in real time against peers in the room and against aggregate data from community banks nationwide, followed by facilitated peer discussion of the most common gaps. Every attendee leaves with a scored assessment and a prioritized  90-day action plan.

Learning Objectives:

• Score your institution across five AI readiness dimensions using a structured assessment completed during the session.
• Benchmark your results against peer institutions in the room and aggregate community bank data nationwide.
• Prioritize a 90-day action plan matched to your bank’s size, budget, and risk appetite.

ePayResources

Fraud doesn't stop to consider how a payment moves—and neither should your fraud strategy. As fraudsters exploit checks, ACH, wires, instant payments, and emerging technologies, community banks face the challenge of protecting customers while balancing risk, compliance, and operational efficiency. Through real-world case studies and interactive discussions, attendees will examine how fraud schemes differ across payment channels, identify common vulnerabilities that criminals exploit, and explore practical strategies to strengthen controls without creating unnecessary friction for customers. Participants will leave with actionable ideas to enhance fraud detection, improve cross-functional collaboration, and better prepare their institutions for today's rapidly evolving payments landscape.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how fraud risks and emerging threats differ across major payment channels, including checks, ACH, wires, and instant payments.
• Identify operational and control gaps that increase fraud risk and evaluate practical mitigation strategies.
• Learn best practices to strengthen fraud prevention while supporting regulatory compliance and a positive customer experience.

A moderated panel of federal regulators will answer audience questions regarding consumer protection rules and other compliance centered topics. This session is an excellent opportunity to hear directly from the regulators on what they deem are hot topics, areas to focus on, and what to expect over the next year. Additionally, hear about the latest enforcement actions and the primary issues that the agencies are finding in compliance examinations. Engage with regulators on the matters particular to your institution.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the current compliance climate.
• Understand the latest hot topics and areas of concern gleaned from examinations.

Cross Financial

Exceptional customer experiences don’t happen by accident—they require leadership, strategy, and continuous evaluation. In today’s competitive environment, delivering an exceptional customer experience isn’t optional—it’s a leadership priority.

This session will guide senior managers on how to lead a culture that intentionally designs, manages, and evaluates the customer experience across every touchpoint, interaction, and channel. Customer expectations have evolved. It’s no longer just about quality interactions at branches or over the phone. Your institution must seamlessly manage the entire customer journey—from initial awareness to post-purchase service.

Banks that excel in this will successfully capture relationships with key generations and market segments. Join this session to learn how to integrate your brand expectations into every step of the customer journey and position your bank as the trusted choice for customers in your market.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn to design and manage the end-to-end customer journey.
• Learn how to build a customer experience culture through leadership.
• Learn to align brand promise with customer experience.

ExecutiveSense Consulting

Most community bankers view succession planning as a leadership issue. In reality, it may be one of the most important factors determining whether a community bank remains independent over the next generation.

Many banks have identified potential replacements for key positions, but far fewer have established a systematic process for evaluating leadership readiness, developing future leaders, and mitigating succession risk.

As leadership transitions accelerate across the industry, boards face increasing pressure to ensure continuity in leadership, culture, and strategic direction. This session helps community bankers move beyond replacement planning and toward a sustainable leadership development strategy.

Participants will gain practical tools to identify succession risk, strengthen their leadership pipeline, and improve their institution's ability to remain independent through future leadership transitions.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify succession risks that could threaten organizational stability, strategic execution, and long-term bank independence.
• Evaluate leadership readiness and development needs using practical succession planning and talent assessment frameworks.
• Build an actionable succession planning process that prepares future leaders and strengthens organizational continuity.

NewGround International

What's bringing brands to life today in physical spaces? View inspiring designs from flagship retail to next-gen financial institutions and immersive branded spaces. Discover what's captivating customers right now, and how you can translate those ideas into your own branch, HQ, or experiential environment.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify emerging global trends in physical brand experience and understand how leading retail, financial, and experiential environments are evolving to meet changing customer expectations.
• Translate design inspiration into actionable brand strategies that create memorable, differentiated experiences across branches, headquarters, and other physical spaces.
• Understand the elements that drive engagement and longevity, recognizing what resonates with modern audiences, what falls flat, and how to make design decisions that remain relevant into the future.

Kaplan Partners

Many institutions today utilize behavioral assessment tools as part of their hiring and executive development processes. Such tools, when properly deployed, may serve to reduce the risk of hiring an executive whose behaviors do not align with the bank's core values.

In addition, up-and-coming leaders often feel more connected to the organization when the bank shows a willingness to "invest" in their career. Thus, assessment tools can not only serve as a foundational aspect of employee development programs but also as a strong retention tool for "high potential" executives and employees.

Hunton

Most community banks provide for a business plan that touches on SWOT analysis for the new year. Those plans miss key issues for keeping a bank independent. This presentation will delve into strategies for management and board succession, as well as ownership options in order for a bank to have the flexibility to remain independent.

Socratix AI, Inc.

AI is changing what's detectable, and what's exploitable. This session covers a practical framework for matching AI tools to signal type, the emerging attack surfaces (deep fakes, synthetic documents, identity spoofing) that are outpacing old detection methods, and a 90-day playbook and vendor-evaluation rubric to pilot your first AI-augmented fraud, risk, or security workflow.

Learning Objectives:

• Apply a framework for matching AI tools to signal type: recognizing how LLMs and traditional ML add value, and when to apply each.
• Identify emerging AI-driven attack surfaces (synthetic/deepfake documents, visual identity spoofing etc.) and understand why legacy detection approaches decay against them.
• Build a 90-day pilot plan, using a practical vendor-evaluation rubric, to launch one AI-augmented fraud, risk, or security workflow at your community bank.

DDJ Myers

Organizations worldwide are navigating a complex landscape that includes retiring leadership, a rising Gen Z workforce, remote operations, and the AI revolution. At the heart of a resilient and innovative future lies a critical, often overlooked group: mid-level managers.

This session explores how to transform your organization by rethinking how you develop and deploy mid-level talent. Through candid insights, industry data, and hands-on strategies, you'll learn why traditional development programs fall short and what to do instead.

Ideal for organizations ready to build leadership pipelines with intention, rigor, and results, this session will challenge your thinking and equip you to act.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify why traditional leadership development programs fail to prepare mid-level managers for the combined pressures of retiring leadership, generational shifts, remote operations, and AI adoption.
• Evaluate the current bench strength and readiness of mid-level managers within their own institution, using industry data and diagnostic frameworks presented in the session.
• Build an intentional, rigorous leadership pipeline strategy that deploys mid-level talent as active drivers of organizational resilience and innovation, rather than passive participants in development programs.

Teslar Software

Behind every credit and operations team, there’s a story hidden in the data. Using real-world trends from community and regional banks, this session explores key operational and credit metrics like exception rates, collateral and policy exceptions, risk rating distributions, and loan maintenance activity to identify the practices behind high-performing institutions. We’ll also explore how AI is reshaping these metrics, where it's delivering measurable value, and what to expect next.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key credit and operational metrics that distinguish high-performing financial institutions.
• Evaluate real-world benchmarking trends from community and regional banks to uncover operational practices that improve efficiency, consistency, and credit risk management.
• Understand how AI is reshaping credit and operational processes, where it is delivering measurable value today, and how its impact on performance metrics may evolve.

Posh AI

Most banks treat AI training, real-time knowledge, and coaching as separate tools. This session shows how to connect them into a single flywheel: every real customer interaction is reviewed by an AI coach, the gaps it finds become new training scenarios, and a knowledge assistant closes the loop by putting the right answer in front of any employee the moment they need it. The result isn't a one-time onboarding boost; it's a system that makes your entire team measurably better every week, from day one through year ten.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to build a closed loop where every real customer interaction generates new coaching and training content, so improvement compounds continuously instead of stopping after onboarding.
• Learn how pairing an AI knowledge assistant with ongoing AI coaching keeps tenured employees improving, not just new hires, by surfacing gaps and answers in the flow of daily work.
• Learn how to measure the flywheel effect over time, tracking how coaching quality, training relevance, and answer accuracy compound as the system runs.

HuLoop Automation

The future of work in community banking isn't about replacing people with AI. It's about creating a workforce where human, robotic, and agentic workers operate together as a coordinated team.

In this Learning Lab, participants will explore how banks can orchestrate these three types of workers, assigning work based on their unique strengths. Through real-world banking examples and facilitated discussion, they'll learn how to orchestrate work across a future-ready workforce while maintaining governance, compliance, and customer trust.

Participants will leave with a practical framework for combining people, AI, and automation to increase productivity and resilience, all while working with existing technology and preserving the human relationships that differentiate community banking.

Learning Objectives:

• Differentiate the roles and strengths of human workers, agentic workers, and robotic workers—and identify where each delivers the greatest value.
• Learn how to orchestrate work as one unified team.
• Identify a practical path to implementation.

Mastercard

New research shows small businesses represent one of the greatest growth opportunities for community banks, yet many institutions are capturing only a fraction of their customers' payment activity. While small business card strategies often focus on Accounts Payable, business spending extends well beyond AP to include travel, procurement, fleet, subscriptions, technology, and day-to-day operating expenses.

In this session, we'll explore what the data reveals about small business payment behaviors and share perspectives from ICBA Payments client banks who are successfully growing business card programs. Learn how community banks like yours are identifying untapped payment flows, increasing card adoption, and positioning cards as a strategic business tool rather than simply a payment product.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify payment trends and business spending patterns to uncover untapped revenue opportunities.
• Learn how community banks are successfully expanding business card usage and deepening business relationships.
• Learn how to capture more business spending and increase non-interest income.

Gerrish Smith Tuck, PC

Community bank advocates Philip Smith and Greyson Tuck will renew their firm’s Ultimate Community Bank Q&A two-man “song and dance,” sharing key stories related to community banks that will change your strategic outlook for the future, as they field any and all questions in an open forum live exchange that is always certain to educate, inform, and entertain.  Don’t miss it!

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the practical truths of community banking.
• Dispell myths regarding independence and the M&A market for community banks.
• Develop best practices for managing and running your community bank.

Travelers Bond & Specialty Insurance

The most effective fraud prevention starts with understanding how fraudsters operate. Travelers will explore current fraud schemes affecting banks nationwide, unpack claim examples that reveal how losses are executed, and discuss the tactics criminals are using to exploit vulnerabilities. Attendees will gain actionable insights and proven practices to help identify risks earlier and strengthen their bank’s defenses.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand current fraud trends being perpetrated against banks.
• Understand how losses are executed using claim examples.
• Learn best practices to help banks avoid losses.

Jack Henry

Community banks hold more data than ever, yet most struggle to convert it into measurable financial outcomes. Growth, efficiency, fraud reduction, personalization– every strategic priority depends on intelligence. But intelligence only emerges when two disciplines operate together: data science, which builds the models, and data governance, which ensures those models are trustworthy, explainable, and ready for real world decisioning.

This session shows leaders how to combine both to turn dormant data into active revenue. Most banks chase AI before fixing the data foundation required to make it work. The result is predictable: stalled initiatives, inconsistent outputs, and prototypes that never reach production.

This session begins by exposing the root cause (fragmented data) and demonstrates how a modern foundation transforms model performance, adoption, and financial impact.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn the specific model types that reliably drive revenue across institutions of all sizes including: fraud detection, credit risk, segmentation, and churn models.
• Learn to build a production-ready model pipeline from data ingestion, feature engineering, and training to deployment, monitoring, and drift management.
• Learn how to operationalize intelligence across teams and businses units from data science and governance to risk and compliance.
   

ICBA

As regulators finalize key decisions on payment stablecoins and digital assets, community bankers need more than headlines. This exclusive executive briefing will examine the latest developments from Washington, including emerging GENIUS Act implementation efforts, regulatory expectations, and policy debates that could reshape the competitive landscape. Attendees will hear ICBA's perspective on what is happening behind the scenes, what issues remain unresolved, and where regulators are likely to focus next.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess the latest federal policy, regulatory, and legislative developments affecting payment stablecoins and digital assets, including key implementation efforts related to the GENIUS Act.
• Identify emerging regulatory expectations and unresolved policy questions that could influence how community banks engage with digital asset and stablecoin-related activities.
• Evaluate the potential operational and strategic implications for community banks and anticipate areas of future regulatory focus and industry advocacy.

Wipfli

Community banks are investing in digital channels, automation, self-service, data, and new technologies, but customers do not experience these capabilities as separate initiatives. They experience one bank, one relationship, and one journey. At the same time, every institution is competing for a scarce resource: the customer’s attention.

This interactive Learning Lab will explore how the attention economy is reshaping customer expectations and why simply adding channels or automating transactions does not necessarily create a better experience. Participants will examine how customer journeys move across digital, branch, contact center, and self-service environments, where friction and fragmentation commonly occur, and how to determine which moments should be automated and which should remain intentionally human.

Using practical community banking examples, facilitated discussion, and a simple decision framework, participants will identify opportunities to connect channels, reduce customer effort, deploy automation purposefully, and preserve the human interaction that differentiates a community bank. Attendees will leave with an actionable way to evaluate their own customer journeys and prioritize improvements based on customer value, institutional capacity, and strategic importance.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how the attention economy is changing customer expectations and influencing how customers choose, use, and remain engaged with their financial institution.
• Evaluate customer journeys across digital, branch, contact center, and self-service channels to identify friction, duplication, channel disconnects, and moments that matter most to the customer relationship.
• Identify where automation and self-service can reduce customer effort and improve efficiency, and where human interaction should be intentionally preserved to build trust, provide guidance, and differentiate the community bank.