Main Street Matters Blog

The coronavirus pandemic, hurricane season, and the wildfires on the West Coast, stand as prudent reminders of how critical disaster preparedness is not only for community banks, but for our communities at large.

Summer is approaching rapidly, and it’s often the best time to catch up on reading. So, here are some suggestions for great books to hone your leadership skills.

Academic studies have shown that making yourself smile can actually boost your mood and that a warm smile can help convince other people of your competence. Smiling is also contagious.

From having to adapt to retail closings, diminished staff and customer capacities, a new work-from-home infrastructure, and more, the nation’s small businesses have reacted quickly in the wake of the pandemic.

Second-quarter FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile statistics are not just evidence of community banks’ resilience in times of economic hardship, but an attestation to the resilience of their commitment to Main Street as a guarantor of essential financial services.

In an environment where innovation needs to be continual, how can community banks succeed? Blake Swafford, senior innovation officer at SimplyBank, sums it up well. “It’s about being really committed to innovation."

Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, which is why we recently kicked off its application period for our third ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator cohort--to maintain the program's momentum and ongoing quest to identify technology solutions that solve for community bank pain points.

While policymakers continue debating new approaches to mitigate the coronavirus' ongoing impact, one issue has attracted newfound scrutiny as the pandemic’s economic consequences unfold: How will these financial pressures affect the U.S. housing market?

Unless you have been living on a desert island for the past few years, you would be hard-pressed to miss the technological revolution that is sweeping our nation’s financial system and the larger global economy.

Catching synthetic identity fraudsters remains difficult, and the fall-out of not detecting it, is substantial. AI company Coalesce estimates that synthetic identities account for more than 20 percent of losses in a loan portfolio, and for credit, they average 4.6 times the typical loss.