Main Street Matters Blog

When I attended FinovateFall in September, I was struck by its palpable energy. Not only was it the most well attended Finovate to date with roughly 1,800 attendees and 64 participating companies, it was a widely collaborative conference, converting what had once felt like a competitive environment into one of enablement.

In the first half of 2022, there were 817 data breaches in the U.S., and combined with data leaks and data exposure, they impacted more than 53 million individuals. These are alarming numbers, but they could have been much worse without the use of some form of multifactor authentication.

The consequences of uncoordinated regulatory standards at the federal level are creating an artificial problem at the local level, potentially endangering many community banks’ ability to lend to local customers.

The Venture Center, ICBA’s leadership bankers, and our ThinkTECH Accelerator cohorts demonstrated the importance of community bank-fintech collaborations at last month’s VenCent Summit. It was an opportunity to showcase the evolution of our Accelerator alumni and reiterate the value of our ThinkTECH initiatives.

In 2020, nearly 18 million Americans were defrauded via digital wallets and person-to-person (P2P) services, according to Javelin Strategy & Research. With numbers like that, P2P solutions like Zelle have come under fire, and issues are escalating.

Talent recruitment and professional development has always been a critical issue for community banks, but today’s job market is different. The impact of the “Great Resignation” has placed the workforce in the driver’s seat. Even so, as nimble, local decision makers, community banks have a big opportunity to stand out from the crowd of potential employers.

Despite ICBA’s persistent communications on the negative impact of Durbin Amendment interventions on payment card systems, this latest iteration of Durbin only compounds the prior harm and furthers the misguided policies of the past that will inevitably lead to significant disruption in credit markets and consumer spending, if passed.

The current worker shortage is creating real economic impacts across all industries. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, there are 3.4 million fewer Americans working today compared to February of 2020.

As the leading providers of agricultural loans, community banks make up 80 percent of all financing to agriculture, and opportunities exist to extend that support.

Relationship banking has entered a new, digital era as confirmed by recent research from Cornerstone Advisors that concluded, “There is a human element to mobile banking.” In fact, this Cornerstone study revealed that 60 percent of Gen Z and almost two-thirds of Millennials expect to connect with customer support directly from their mobile banking app.