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Staying True to Our Mission
Staying True to Our Mission In an era of seemingly perpetual political gridlock, it’s important to pause on occasion to consider why we community bankers put so much effort into political advocacy....
Mortgage Relief Recognizes Community Banks’ Unique Role
Mortgage Relief Recognizes Community Banks’ Unique Role It was a long time coming, but persistence paid off when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently updated its mortgage regulations...
Digging Deep and Making a Difference This Holiday Season
Digging Deep and Making a Difference This Holiday Season While many Americans are gearing up for the holiday season, ICBA and community bankers are gearing up for a bustling couple of weeks in...
In ILC Fight, Community Banks Will Not Stand Down
In ILC Fight, Community Banks Will Not Stand Down Since I arrived at the Independent Community Bankers of America in 2003, the conversation about the mixing of banking and commerce has heated up,...
At Our Best in the Worst of Times
At Our Best in the Worst of Times I never cease to be amazed by how community bankers dig the deepest when they are subject to the very worst conditions, as evidenced by the industry’s recent...
Short-Term Investments That Yield Enduring Gains
Short-Term Investments That Yield Enduring Gains As a former community banker, I understand the importance of succession planning as a vital part of an organization’s overall strategy for the...
A Union for the Ages
A Union for the Ages We are in an era of innovative collaborations—where the marriage between technology and service holds the promise of helping community banks deliver more personalized...
The Good Fight
The Good Fight Rebeca Romero Rainey: We need a regulatory environment that supports and encourages community banks like Abacus Federal Savings Bank and we need community bankers like the Sung...
Taking Stock of Your Core Processor Relationship
Taking Stock of Your Core Processor Relationship Three banks sound off on using ICBA's Core Processor Resource Guide as a blueprint for managing this complex, critical and expensive technology...
ICBA 2018 Election Analysis
ICBA 2018 Election Analysis Voters delivered narrow control of the House to Democrats, sharpening oversight of the Trump administration and bringing a raft of new policy initiatives. In a special...
Agencies Improving Appraisal Regs
Agencies Improving Appraisal Regs The federal banking agencies recently responded to industry requests with a proposed rule to increase the threshold where bankers could use a property evaluation...
Shared Values Bring Shared Success
Shared Values Bring Shared Success Community bankers, you outdid yourselves in 2018. As we near the end of this significant year in community banking, it is worth taking a moment to look back and...
With Volcker Rule Exemption, S. 2155 Relief Continues
With Volcker Rule Exemption, S. 2155 Relief Continues As advocated by ICBA since the Volcker Rule was first proposed a decade ago, this additional source of regulatory burden no longer applies to...
Faster Payments: An Overview of Options for Community Banks
Faster Payments: An Overview of Options for Community Banks While all faster payments options have one thing in common—moving money and information faster—there are often distinct...
Minority Banks: Too Important to Lose
Minority Banks: Too Important to Lose With minority depository institutions continuing to serve a crucial role, their decrease from a high of 215 in 2008 to less than 150 today is a significant...
Navigating a New Decade of Payments
Navigating a New Decade of Payments 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...
Into the weeds on the QM patch
Into the weeds on the QM patch 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...
Digital Wallets: An Overview
Digital Wallets: An Overview As customer expectations continue to shift, digital wallets—or mobile wallets as they are sometimes called—continue to grow in popularity as a preferred...
Accelerator: Driving Data Analytics and Reducing Fraud
Accelerator: Driving Data Analytics and Reducing Fraud Community banks with fewer resources and less money to invest in technology than their larger counterparts, may view using data analytics as...
New Driver of Payments Growth: Fed Study Shows Debit Transactions As Opportunity for Community Banks
New Driver of Payments Growth: Fed Study Shows Debit Transactions As Opportunity for Community Banks The latest iteration of the Fed’s triennial study showed that in 2018, noncash payments¹...
Resolve to Take Grassroots Action in 2020
Resolve to Take Grassroots Action in 2020 Your perspective as a community-based, taxpaying business is exceptionally helpful to the people who write and enforce the regulations you (and credit...
Finding 65 million consumers: Using alternative data to acquire new customers
Finding 65 million consumers: Using alternative data to acquire new customers Relationship banking is nothing new to community banks. Novel underwriting techniques and recent regulatory guidance...
Building ICBA’s Innovation Team
Building ICBA’s Innovation Team 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...
ThinkTECH Accelerator: Addressing Lending & Technology Pain Points
ThinkTECH Accelerator: Addressing Lending & Technology Pain Points Community banks continue looking for ways to grow loan volume and improve the customer experience in the process. In today’s...
Accelerator: Supporting Customer Acquisition and Retention
Accelerator: Supporting Customer Acquisition and Retention In today’s economy, community bankers are looking more and more to their digital channels for new customer opportunities, especially those...
Accelerator Addresses Financial Well-Being
Accelerator Addresses Financial Well-Being 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...
ICBA LIVE ThinkTECH Showcase: Know Before You Go
ICBA LIVE ThinkTECH Showcase: Know Before You Go What differentiates ThinkTECH Accelerator participants from the fintech world at large? The difference lies in the input, guidance and insights...
Community Banks Remain Vigilant Amid COVID-19 Cyber Threats
Community Banks Remain Vigilant Amid COVID-19 Cyber Threats As more and more consumers are moving to online banking during the coronavirus pandemic, some for the first time ever, criminals are...
Preparing your community bank for the coronavirus
Preparing your community bank for the coronavirus On Jan. 30, the World Health Organization and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared public health emergencies in response to the...
Standing up for small business
Standing up for small business Despite strong ICBA and community bank opposition, the Small Business Administration is moving ahead with a rule that could significantly harm its guaranteed lending...
Coronavirus Could Accelerate Decline of Cash
Coronavirus Could Accelerate Decline of Cash The coronavirus outbreak is raising concerns about the use of cash as more Americans embrace digital technology to pay and get paid. These ongoing...
How to Help Your Small-Business Customers During the Pandemic
How to Help Your Small-Business Customers During the Pandemic During times of crisis, such as today’s COVID-19 pandemic, small businesses rely on community banks for help in navigating the...
ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator: Navigating the New Norm and Giving Back
ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator: Navigating the New Norm and Giving Back The technologies community banks have deployed over the past decade—from mobile apps to remote deposit capture to...
Charting the Path Forward
Charting the Path Forward Community banks have always demonstrated courage and commitment in helping customers thrive in good times and in adversity. As bankers well know, with every crisis comes...
The New Normal: Getting Back to Work During COVID-19
The New Normal: Getting Back to Work During COVID-19 As parts of our country prepare to “reopen for business” what constitutes the new normal for our nation’s community banks will depend on several...
PPP Solutions Showcase: Fintechs Support Calculating, Tracking, and Reporting Forgiveness
PPP Solutions Showcase: Fintechs Support Calculating, Tracking, and Reporting Forgiveness Necessity truly is the mother of invention. Community banks have all felt that over the past few weeks as...
Leading alongside our teams
Leading alongside our teams 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....
Supporting Customer Needs Through Digital Financial Literacy
Supporting Customer Needs Through Digital Financial Literacy With concerns over the cleanliness of paper-based payment options like cash and checks, and limited in-person branch offerings, digital...
ThinkTECH Accelerator Alumni: Shared Values, Shared Future
ThinkTECH Accelerator Alumni: Shared Values, Shared Future The day-to-day workings of a bank do not cease simply because so many new challenges — thanks to COVID-19 — are coming our...
The Jar of Good
The Jar of Good More often than not, we don’t stop to recognize the good things that happen to our bank, employees, customers or communities. They tend to get lost in our day-to-day operations. So,...
Partnering for Innovation During the Pandemic
Partnering for Innovation During the Pandemic Community banks had to beef up what they had in place and get creative to adequately address how to serve their customers amid a shutdown. And as the...
SBA Issues New Guidance on PPP Lending
SBA Issues New Guidance on PPP Lending The Small Business Administration last night issued two interim final rules on Paycheck Protection Program requirements. The Small Business Administration...
Cybersecurity in the time of COVID-19
Cybersecurity in the time of COVID-19 During the pandemic, three types of attacks and scams have risen sharply, and bankers should anticipate seeing more of these threats throughout the pandemic’s...
PPP Successes: Fintech Partnerships that Work
PPP Successes: Fintech Partnerships that Work Launching a new lending initiative during a pandemic was a challenge in itself, but add in closed branches, remote customers, and government...
ICBA Strengthens Commitment to Community Bank Innovation
ICBA Strengthens Commitment to Community Bank Innovation Innovators see the world not as it is today but how it can be, which is why ICBA has pledged a three-year commitment to its ThinkTECH...
SBA Issues Needed Guidance on Processing Fees, Form 1502
SBA Issues Needed Guidance on Processing Fees, Form 1502 The Small Business Administration just released long-sought guidance on submitting the initial SBA Form 1502 for Paycheck Protection Program...
Tell the Senate to Pass PPP Reforms
Tell the Senate to Pass PPP Reforms With the Senate considering Paycheck Protection Program reforms after the House passed its reform bill last week, now is the time for community banks to urge...
Feed your focus
Feed your focus When I really need to focus, I’ve noticed the process usually starts with decluttering both my mind and my environment. I love the quote, “Starve the distractions. Feed your focus.”...
Community Banks Continue to Respond to Small Business Needs
Community Banks Continue to Respond to Small Business Needs Literally overnight — the night of March 26 — community banks answered the call to support small businesses fighting to...
Mapping out career paths
Mapping out career paths Given today’s competitive labor market and rising employee expectations, finding the right talent for your bank can be challenging. So, why not look internally and focus on...
Falls Fintech: A Case Study in Launching a Bank-Based Accelerator
Falls Fintech: A Case Study in Launching a Bank-Based Accelerator Central Payments, the payments arm of the $238 million-asset Central Bank of Kansas City (CBKC) never imagined that a few days into...
Continuing the ThinkTECH Accelerator Journey
Continuing the ThinkTECH Accelerator Journey Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, which is why we recently kicked off its application period for our third ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator...
SimplyBank’s Take on Fostering Community Bank Innovation
SimplyBank’s Take on Fostering Community Bank Innovation In an environment where innovation needs to be continual, how can community banks succeed? Blake Swafford, senior innovation officer at...
Energy and influence
Energy and influence Academic studies have shown that making yourself smile can actually boost your mood and that a warm smile can help convince other people of your competence. Smiling is also...
A summer reading list for leaders
A summer reading list for leaders Summer is approaching rapidly, and it’s often the best time to catch up on reading. So, here are some suggestions for great books to hone your leadership skills....
How Community Banks Can Lead in Weathering Natural Disasters
How Community Banks Can Lead in Weathering Natural Disasters The coronavirus pandemic, hurricane season, and the wildfires on the West Coast, stand as prudent reminders of how critical disaster...
Using Payments to Attract and Retain Gen Z Customers
Using Payments to Attract and Retain Gen Z Customers Community banks have long served the small-business market, but given the pandemic impact, new opportunities have emerged to support these...
Cryptocurrency Primer for Community Banks
Cryptocurrency Primer for Community Banks Bitcoin’s market cap is larger than the economies of some of the world’s smaller nations. The prices of popular cryptocurrencies continue to soar to new...
Community banks earn victories with stimulus advocacy
Community banks earn victories with stimulus advocacy Community bankers have hit the ground running this year with another round of Paycheck Protection Program lending, Economic Impact Payment...
Will Google’s latest changes prompt banks to rethink customer acquisition?
Will Google’s latest changes prompt banks to rethink customer acquisition? If you don’t know what third party cookies are, you’re in luck. They’re on their way out. But you’re not completely off...