Main Street Matters Blog

With concerns over the cleanliness of paper-based payment options like cash and checks, and limited in-person branch offerings, digital payments are gaining new traction as a safer way to make and receive payments.

The technologies community banks have deployed over the past decade—from mobile apps to remote deposit capture to contactless cards—mean that today, we can continue to access our finances, anytime, anywhere—even within the confines of our home.

What differentiates ThinkTECH Accelerator participants from the fintech world at large? The difference lies in the input, guidance and insights these companies receive from a distinguished network of industry leaders, including community bank executives.

Community banks with fewer resources and less money to invest in technology than their larger counterparts, may view using data analytics as being out of reach. It’s not.

Let’s face it. We’re not living in our parents’ financial services world. In today’s immediate gratification society, our concern lies more with what’s in our account this second than where it will be next week.

In today’s economy, community bankers are looking more and more to their digital channels for new customer opportunities, especially those with the desire to attract mobile-focused millennials and Generation Z, or centennials as they are sometimes called. The numbers on digital spend, however, indicate there is room to grow.

When it comes to financial services, almost 63 percent of the U.S. population uses digital banking. So, as a community bank, if you are not employing—or at least considering—a digital-first strategy for your customers, you should be.

As customer expectations continue to shift, digital wallets—or mobile wallets as they are sometimes called—continue to grow in popularity as a preferred payment option. While adoption in the U.S. is still in its infancy, it is growing fast.

Community banks continue looking for ways to grow loan volume and improve the customer experience in the process. In today’s digital era, that means simplifying the front-end user interface and user experience as well as streamlining back-end operations.

As an industry, we’re at a pivotal stage where the pace of change increases daily and digital transformation rocks our reality. But amidst everything, community bankers remain steadfast in putting the customer relationship first.