Digital Wallets: An Overview

Feb 20, 2020
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.

ThinkTECH Accelerator: Addressing Lending & Technology Pain Points

Feb 18, 2020
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.

Building ICBA’s Innovation Team

Feb 7, 2020
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.

Into the weeds on the QM patch

Feb 4, 2020
The debate over housing-finance reform often ends up deep in the weeds, but the esoteric details are often of the utmost importance to community banks. Recent developments in Washington bear that out.

Leading alongside our teams

Feb 1, 2020
It’s the time of year when we celebrate the relationships in our lives, and it’s a great time to build connections at home, within the community or in the workplace. That doesn’t mean composing Shakespearean sonnets for your coworkers, but it does mean showing up in a meaningful way.

Finding 65 million consumers: Using alternative data to acquire new customers

Jan 31, 2020
Relationship banking is nothing new to community banks. Novel underwriting techniques and recent regulatory guidance have enabled community banks to understand and serve their customers even better.

Navigating a New Decade of Payments

Jan 30, 2020
From concerns about Libra to the development of the Federal Reserve’s FedNow real-time payments settlement service, policymakers are poised for action on behalf of their government, business and consumer constituents.

Resolve to Take Grassroots Action in 2020

Jan 23, 2020
Your perspective as a community-based, taxpaying business is exceptionally helpful to the people who write and enforce the regulations you (and credit unions) must follow. In this blog post, we’ll touch on our top priorities and give you the tactics you’ll need to help make your banking advocacy resolutions a reality.

New Driver of Payments Growth: Fed Study Shows Debit Transactions As Opportunity for Community Banks

Jan 22, 2020
The latest iteration of the Fed’s triennial study showed that in 2018, noncash payments¹ amounted to $97 trillion, with transaction volume reaching more than 174 billion. That kind of market opens new opportunities for community banks.

Capitalizing on Change in 2020

Jan 14, 2020
In banking, one thing is for certain – and that is change. With the advent of new technologies and solutions, education will be the indispensable complement to ensure community banks can take advantage of the opportunity these changes afford.

ThinkTECH Accelerator: Purposeful Development

Jan 10, 2020
As we welcomed in the new decade, ICBA signaled its ongoing commitment to community banking innovation with the launch of our second ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator program.

Unexpected Benefits of ICBA’s ThinkTECH Accelerator

Jan 3, 2020
ICBA's Kevin Tweddle discusses unexpected benefits of ICBA's ThinkTECH Accelerator program with community bankers John Buhrmaster of First National Bank of Scotia, N.Y., and Scott McComb of Heartland Bank in Whitehall, Ohio.

Reflection and Ruminations

Dec 30, 2019
The oldest Millennials are pushing 40 and are well established in the financial services landscape, but with Gen Z—the elders of whom are college-aged—we have a digital native group with new expectations.

Same Day ACH: A Viable Faster Payments Solution for Community Banks

Dec 16, 2019
In 2018, Same Day ACH volume reached 178 million transactions, an increase of 137 percent over the previous year. As a readily available faster payments option, and one that many community banks are familiar with, Same Day ACH serves as a practical and immediate option to support your bank.

Relationships That Stand the Test of Time

Dec 12, 2019
Community banks have gotten it right again. With the evolution of technology and the rise of a movement to all digital-banking, others within the industry have been chasing new channels with fervor trying to find the silver bullet that ensures their relevancy.

Strategies to Help Fight Back Against Card Fraud

Dec 11, 2019
First-party fraud and synthetic identity fraud is an area of growing concern, exacerbated by difficulties of identifying these attacks, but there are ways the industry is fighting back.

Boarding Up the ILC Loophole

Dec 4, 2019
ICBA continues to lead the opposition to mixing banking and commerce through exploitation of the ILC loophole, recently expressing strong support for new legislation that would close it.

Faster Payments: An Overview of Options for Community Banks

Nov 25, 2019
While all faster payments options have one thing in common—moving money and information faster—there are often distinct differences or subtleties when comparing today’s various faster payments offerings.

Core Providers Weigh in on Community Bank Innovation ​

Nov 21, 2019
“Because we’ve always done it that way” are perhaps the seven most painful words in the English language when it comes to innovation. It’s the death of new ideas that challenge conventional ways of thinking and the antithesis of the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator program.

Detecting and Mitigating Synthetic Identity Fraud

Nov 19, 2019
It’s the fastest growing type of financial crime in the U.S., costing U.S. lenders $6 billion in 2016, and it’s not what you might think.