This year we’ve doubled down on our commitment to year-round innovation—with the opening of our Center for Innovation in Atlanta, the rollout of two 10-week ThinkTECH Accelerators, and a host of specialized forums and showcases—in our effort to address our bankers’ most pressing business challenges and opportunities.

Bankers are operating in a fast-paced world, with solutions addressing customer growth and engagement. This technology can be a key driver to help them become more competitive; however, these solutions can only help if deployed strategically.

It’s an exciting time for ICBA Innovation, culminating in the long-awaited opening of ICBA’s Center for Innovation—an initiative more than a year in the making with the promise to help drive community bank innovation.

This time of year, we often take stock of our accomplishments and look ahead to the possibilities and opportunities awaiting us in the coming year. Certainly, when it comes to blazing ICBA’s innovation path for community bankers, we’ve upped the ante significantly in 2023.

Innovation, like time, is constantly moving forward, which is why even before we wrapped up our 2023 ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator program, plans were well underway for the first of three ICBA ThinkTECH Solutions Forums this year.

They say, "success begets success" and in the case of the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator program this timeless belief holds true. Before we even hit the halfway point on our fifth accelerator program, which kicked off on April 24, we found out that we’d reached capacity for both in-person and virtual bank visits.

As news outlets continue to report on the demise of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the broader implications for the industry, it bears repeating that not all banks are equal. Community banks are relationship lenders first and foremost and this distinction makes all the difference in times of uncertainty.

We have previously called 2021 a year of innovation, but there’s no doubt that ICBA doubled down on its position throughout 2022 to ensure that innovation is accessible, affordable, and attainable to all community bankers.

Just shy of a year ago, ICBA announced its role as one of the general partners and investment committee members in a strategic investment fund designed to accelerate technology opportunities and adoption at community banks. Today, BankTech Ventures, has raised more than $115 million in committed capital in its first fund and has backed eight different companies working to provide community bank technology solutions.

Bob Dylan once said, “There is nothing so stable as change,” and I have found that to be true, particularly as we look to embrace modern technologies and the companies that enable them.

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.

Engaging community bankers to think about innovation in new ways continues to be my driving force, but I’m not doing it alone. This year I’m bringing along ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator alumni.

Community Bankers Association of Illinois (CBAI) is no stranger to fintech collaborations, but the idea of helping shape fintech offerings tailored to community banks was too intriguing an idea to pass up.

Bank innovation continues to be a central focus for regulatory agencies. From the launch of innovation offices and office hours to policy statements encouraging innovative approaches, regulators have embraced—and now expect—new forms of responsible innovation. Often, this innovation relies upon strategic bank-technology collaborations.

“There is only one threat, and it’s inaction,” said The Venture Center’s Wayne Miller in his opening remarks at the ThinkTECH Accelerator Showcase at ICBA LIVE. That set the tone for the session, where each fintech in the cohort presented not only their solutions but emphasized the results behind them.

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.”

After 12 fully immersive weeks and hundreds of meetings with community bankers, core vendors, regulators and venture capital firms, the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator 2021 cohort revealed a glimpse into the future of banking with high-tech solutions tailored for community banks and their customers.

ICBA and The Venture Center gave particular attention to identifying innovative back-office solution providers for this year’s ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator cohort. These solutions run the gamut from robotic process automation for online lending to cybersecurity oversight through an automated governance solution.

In a world where technology has made it possible for instant gratification in customer and business relationships, community banks have had to find new ways to expand and deepen customer connections.