Main Street Matters Blog

With time ticking down until ICBA LIVE, schedules are solidifying, speeches are taking shape, details are firming up, and hotel rooms are filling up (not to worry, we just added more, but space is limited, so book now). The energy and momentum around coming together in San Antonio February 27 – March 3 is palpable.

As more community banks engage with fintechs to support their business plans, due diligence continues to become an even bigger piece of the puzzle. While every bank is different there are several questions every community bank should consider as they enter into these agreements.

The third quarter of 2021 yielded the second-highest quarter on record for fintech financing, up 147% over the previous year. Despite this growth, a recent analysis by EY research of 45 banks working with fintechs revealed only one-quarter had deep engagement due to “barriers to collaboration.”

The average person spends nearly two and a half hours on social media per day, so it’s no wonder social payments have started to infiltrate the financial services industry.

While all community banks place a firm focus on serving, when you are a CDFI, serving is at the very core of your business identity. Couple that with an increased desire to think creatively, and what you get is a new recipe for innovation.

In the innovation world, 2021 may go down in history as the year of community bank innovation. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and associated challenges thrown in our path, community banks continued to meet their customers’ needs.

For more than 90 years, ICBA has provided value to our membership in a wide variety of ways and places. Today, we are refocusing efforts to better serve our members on Twitter.

Separating fact from fiction on central bank digital currencies and a possible U.S. digital dollar can be challenging. In the latest edition of our Digital Dollar Digest series, ICBA is here to help dispel any misconceptions and debunk the most common myths.

With the eldest members of Gen Z clocking in at age 24, they represent a market ripe for targeting with banking services. But what they are looking for differs from what Millennials and Gen X required of community banks at the same age.

Smart contracts — blockchain-based programs that operate when predetermined conditions are met — offer potential use cases as well as risks for community banks evaluating their payments processing capabilities