Search Articles
Seeing the Story Behind the Numbers: Introducing Eric Kirchner
Eric Kirchner joined the team in January 2025 as senior vice president, strategic finance. In this role, he contributes to the financial modeling and forecasting for all aspects of the ICBA...
Combating Fraud: One Attack at a Time
The numbers don’t lie: fraud losses are on the rise, with 61% of financial organizations reporting direct losses of over $500,000 in a 12-month period. In addition, 52% of mid-market organizations...
ICBA Payments is Bringing Push-to-Card Payments to Community Banks
ICBA Payments is committed to helping community banks keep pace with innovation in the payments space. When FedNow launched, ICBA Payments partnered with market leader, Pidgin, to ensure that banks...
Weighing Your Card Options with ICBA Payments
For community banks and their customers, options are key. Just as no two communities are alike, no two community banks are the same, so we need the flexibility to create solutions that meet our...
ICBA Payments and TCM Bank Welcome Kelly Kroskie as EVP of Digital Transformation
ICBA Payments, the payments subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), today announced the appointment of Kelly Kroskie as executive vice president, digital transformation...
ICBA Payments and Mastercard Partner to Upgrade Customer Payment Experiences for Community Banks
ICBA Payments, the payments subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America® (ICBA), announced today its new partnership with Mastercard to offer upgraded and enhanced card and payment...
What to Say to Customers When They Are Being Scammed
Whether your bank’s goal is to acquire new card accounts or boost usage from your existing cardholders, marketing plays a key role. No marketing means stagnant portfolios and low revenue.
Relationship Managers Are Here for You
What 2025 holds for payments remains to be seen. Decreasing interest rates may fuel larger spending and comfort with revolving credit, but some businesses have begun limiting their acceptance of...
The Card Trends to Watch in 2025
What 2025 holds for payments remains to be seen. Decreasing interest rates may fuel larger spending and comfort with revolving credit, but some businesses have begun limiting their acceptance of...
Marketing Made Easier with Ready-to-Use Toolkits
Whether your bank’s goal is to acquire new card accounts or boost usage from your existing cardholders, marketing plays a key role. No marketing means stagnant portfolios and low revenue.
Lessen the Impact of Card Fraud with ICBA Payments’ Fraud Loss Protection Plan
Card fraud losses constitute a significant percentage of a bank’s card program’s costs. In fact, according to the Nilson Report, card fraud accounted for $33 billion in losses worldwide in 2022,...
Leveling Up with Payments
It’s not an easy time for community banking. Each day, we must balance changing interest rates, increasing fees, new technology demands, and mounting customer expectations, which leaves us...
Instant Payments Pilot Opportunity
In case you missed it, ICBA recently announced a partnership with Pidgin, a company that provides best-in-class faster payments capabilities. The partnership is aimed at supporting community banks...
Mitigating Instant Payments Risk to Reap Rewards
Today’s fraud attacks don’t seek out a faster transaction; they look for a chink in the armor and the path of least resistance. That’s why I’m a big believer in cross-channel fraud detection.
ICBA Payments Appoints Three New Members to its Board of Directors
ICBA Payments, the payments-services subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), today announced the election to its board of directors its three newest members.
How Intelligent Automation Supports the AI Journey
I had the pleasure of participating in a panel with Kimberly Kirk, Executive Vice President, Chief Operations Officer at Queensborough National Bank & Trust Co., and Todd Michaud, CEO of HuLoop...
Educate the Consumer – Make a Dent in Fighting Fraud
With every passing year, there are new threat attacks and innovative variations of old fraud schemes that still reign successful. And criminals continue to do their possible best to gain financial...
The FedNow Service is Turning 1, What Comes Next?
With the FedNow Service approaching the anniversary of its July 2023 launch, it's appropriate to reflect on how far we've come and what comes next with respect to instant payments and the FedNow...
The Technology Take
As ICBA Bancard transitions to ICBA Payments, reflecting on our past will help to fuel our future success. While our name has changed, the goal of serving community banks has remained a constant...
Payments Leader Jacob Eisen Named ICBA Payments President and CEO
ICBA Payments, the payments-services subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), is pleased to announce the appointment of Jacob Eisen as its new president and CEO, effective...
Honoring Our Past, Embracing Our Future
As ICBA Bancard transitions to ICBA Payments, reflecting on our past will help to fuel our future success. While our name has changed, the goal of serving community banks has remained a constant...
A Renewed Commitment to Our Mission
From deploying instant payments to enhancing the customer experience to competing with Bigtech, community banks face complex decisions about priorities amidst current fiscal realities.
Introducing ICBA Payments’ New Chairman: Ruth Christopher
When she launched her career as a CPA, Ruth Christopher wasn’t necessarily envisioning a role at a community bank. But after a few years at a regional CPA firm, a partner encouraged her to apply as...
Unlock Your Portfolio’s Potential with Credit Card Marketing
Marketing programs are critical to portfolio health and expansion. The key to success is simple: get started and take action! The steps below should help you start your journey.
Branding on Purpose
There’s been a lot of chatter lately about brand power and how brand drives an organization’s outward expression of its mission and values by being at the heart of great client and employee...
Rethinking Merchant Services
Banks have traditionally relied on interest income from loans and deposits, but non-traditional financial services companies are providing competition for these core products. To survive long term,...
Mid-year Checkpoint on Digital Payments Transformation
With over half of 2023 now firmly in the rearview mirror, we’re hoping community banks have put our digital payments transformation resources to good use—leveraging our whitepaper and workbook to...
Instant Payments and Digital Transformation Go Hand in Hand
At ICBA Bancard, we continue to arm bankers with information and resources to support their instant payments and digital transformation (icba.org/digital-transformation) journeys.
Entering the Era of Instant Payments
On March 15 during the final general session at ICBA LIVE, the Federal Reserve announced that it will launch its much-anticipated FedNow Service in July. With instant payments already a central...
Answering the most common FedNow-related questions
For years, we’ve been waiting in the wings, anticipating the launch of an instant payments service by the Federal Reserve, so it feels surreal to say we’ve arrived.
Credit-Push Fraud: Recognizing the Signs
If you feel like it’s hard to stay on top of payments fraud trends these days, you would not be alone. The introduction of any new payment instrument opens the opportunity for criminals to dupe the...
Chairman's Column: Flipping the Switch - It's Time to Receive Instant Payments
For years, we’ve been waiting in the wings, anticipating the launch of an instant payments service by the Federal Reserve, so it feels surreal to say we’ve arrived.
Playing Catch-up with FedNow – The Greatest Hits of FedNow Resources and Reference Materials
With the July launch of FedNow looming, are you feeling behind in terms of learning more about the service, its impacts on your bank, and the steps needed to implement it?
Build Up Your Protections
Fraud remains a pervasive and growing problem for community banks—with tangible losses. According to a survey from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, every dollar lost to fraud costs U.S. financial...
Passwordless Authentication: The Next Ecosystem?
It has been a continuous conversation over the past several years, and one that is gaining further momentum with each reported data breach—when, or should, banks shift to passwordless authentication?
How Visa’s Updated Compelling Evidence Rule Impacts Community Banks
Fraud remains a pervasive and growing problem for community banks—with tangible losses. According to a survey from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, every dollar lost to fraud costs U.S. financial...
Closing The Digital Divide, Opening New Threats
While cash is still considered to be the most secure form of payment by merchants and consumers, there are a litany of established options and more recently, new and innovative solutions are...
Customers as a First Line of Defense
As the payment card industry continues to strengthen its overall fraud posture with the introduction of security features criminals have resorted to classic techniques to perpetrate account...
Preventing Mobile Fraud in Nine Steps
As consumer smart phone adoption has grown over the years, so has the share of online purchases transacted via mobile devices—and with it, incidents of fraud.
ICBA Bancard: Supporting Your Digital Payments Transformation Journey
Digital transformation is a hot topic and a broad concept. It's hard to go a day without hearing a related buzz word or related article on how to do it, why it's important, or what to focus on first.
The Emerging Influence of Open Banking
One of fintech companies’ most disruptive influences is not necessarily taking away primary deposit relationships, it’s how they motivate consumers to pick and choose apps for all kinds of services.
Why Instant Payments Should Be on Your Digital Transformation Road Map
Even if you aren’t hearing the words “faster payments” or “instant payments” directly from your customers, trends and research show the demand is there – and rising.
Navigating The Waters of Digital Transformation
For years, digital transformation has been top of mind, and community bankers have been diligently evaluating our infrastructure, identifying needs, and developing our individual approaches. That...
Seven ways to use card-on-file to reach top of digital wallet
Ecommerce sales are projected to grow from $4.2 trillion worldwide in 2020 to $5.4 trillion in 2022, according to Statistica. And in North America, card-not-present transactions (excluding travel)...
Digital Payments Fraud: New Conveniences, New Opportunities for Fraudsters
Though consumers have embraced ACH and wire transfers as essential ways to pay and move money, digital tools have increasingly become popular payment methods for consumers due to their convenience...
A Note from the Chairman - Bancard Amplifies Our Voices
From digital transformation to the ramp up to instant payments with FedNow and beyond, payments have become the hot topic du jour. However, as community banking executives, we’re juggling multiple...
Increase Credit Card Income with Comprehensive Marketing Programs
Card programs make significant contributions to banks’ revenue through interchange fees, interest charges on credit card balances, and balance transfer fees. Large financial institutions with deep...
Marketing Your Credit Card Program: A Community Bank in Alabama Weighs In
Ecommerce credit card spend is expected to surpass $500 billion in 2022 for the first time, according to insiderintelligence.com. Community bank marketers will need to be strategic in their...
Knowledge is Power – Turn Your Customers into Defenders
Falling victim to fraud or a scam can be an embarrassing and costly experience. According to a CNBC report published this year, consumers reported fraud losses of more than $5.8 billion in 2021,...
Marketing in the round: Using a 360-degree marketing strategy to reach today’s prospects
In the pre-digital age of marketing, connecting with potential new customers was relatively simple. Everyone watched the same TV channels, listened to the same radio stations, and read the same...
Start simple: free marketing assets for community banks
There are several resources available to community bankers who want to market their credit or debit card program. Below are sites we recommend, which all house free marketing and educational...
Payments One Credit Enhances the Small Business & Commercial Card Experience
Small business and commercial card payments are an exciting growth and relationship opportunity for community banks. Both small business and commercial card types hold strong value and the size and...
Building a Commercial Card Program – A Missouri Community Banker Weighs In
When Chad King, director of business services at $3.5 billion-asset First State Community Bank in Farmington, Mo., came to the bank nearly a decade ago, they charged him with setting up merchant...
Visa SMB Pulse Payment Outlook and Trends
A recent Visa commissioned survey provides insights into credit usage by small- to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) in the United States.
Instant Payments for Small Businesses: Low Hanging Fruit
If you have not read ICBA Bancard CEO Tina Giorgio’s recent blog on instant payments for small businesses, it is definitely worth reading. In the blog, Tina includes some key stats that effectively...
Buy Now, Pay Later Continues Notable Growth as BNPL Fraud Increases
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) quickly rose to become an alternative payment staple during the pandemic, appealing to millennials and consumers wanting to get that ‘longed for’ purchase or just make...
A Note from the Chairman: Carpe Diem Instant Payments
As the lifeblood of the U.S. economy, small businesses have reverberating impacts on the industries and communities they serve. In many cases, their expertise extends into areas other than...
ICBA Bancard is Here to Help
Our mission at ICBA Bancard is to deliver flexible, innovative payments and digital commerce solutions that allow community banks to flourish. To this end, ICBA Bancard’s team is here to help and...
Instant Payments Fraud
Instant, faster, real-time: no matter how you describe the newest sets of payment rails, there are many questions as to how those payments may be protected.
Understanding the What, Why, and How of Instant Payments
As bankers try and digest a steady stream of news related to faster payments, it can be overwhelming to try and keep straight what all the different terms mean, what solutions ride which payment...