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Strategic Planning Reimagined
Like many of today’s processes in banking, strategic planning is undergoing a dramatic shift. One of the core responsibilities of a bank board is to approve, support, and monitor its strategic plan.
The Federal Reserve’s Essential Role in Faster Payments
The Federal Reserve’s Essential Role in Faster Payments ICBA's Cary Whaley explains why the Federal Reserve must play a leadership role in faster payments to ensure safety, integrity, continuity...
How the Fed Can Stop a Megabank Monopoly
How the Fed Can Stop a Megabank Monopoly A Fed-operated real-time settlement system is needed to ensure universal access and to promote future payments innovations. By Rebeca Romero Rainey As the...
Main Street Victory on Faster Payments
Main Street Victory on Faster Payments After years of ICBA-led advocacy on behalf of a real-time payments system that ensures access and choice for community banks, the Federal Reserve has...
Where Does Your Community Bank Fall on the Digital Payments Spectrum?
Where Does Your Community Bank Fall on the Digital Payments Spectrum? Payments Executive Brief Issue 1 For a printable PDF of this issue, click here. By Tina Giorgio Use the ICBA Bancard Digital...
Value of the FedNow Service for Community Banks
Value of the FedNow Service for Community Banks The Federal Reserve’s development of the FedNow Service provides the opportunity for all banks—both large and small—to capitalize on the...
Digital Payments: Defining Opportunities for Community Banks
Digital Payments: Defining Opportunities for Community Banks The payments landscape continues to evolve. Whereas checks and cash were the dominant payments instruments 40 years ago, today digital...
Community Banks Can Directly Influence the Future of Faster Payments
Community Banks Can Directly Influence the Future of Faster Payments Today, faster payments are changing the overall payments landscape. With the advent of Same Day ACH, The Clearing House’s...
Digital Payments Strategy: A Necessity for Your Community Bank
Digital Payments Strategy: A Necessity for Your Community Bank Digital payments continue to grow in popularity as an easy-to-use way for both businesses and consumers to make payments. Not only...
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...
Same Day ACH: A Viable Faster Payments Solution for Community Banks
Same Day ACH: A Viable Faster Payments Solution for Community Banks In 2018, Same Day ACH volume reached 178 million transactions, an increase of 137 percent over the previous year. As a readily...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
How Banks Can Embrace the “Next Normal” in Payments and Digital Experiences
How Banks Can Embrace the “Next Normal” in Payments and Digital Experiences With the pandemic representing a turning point in payments, community banks must take steps now to embrace digital...
Digital Payment Apps - An Overview
Digital Payment Apps - An Overview As ICBA’s Executive Brief on digital wallets demonstrated, consumer use of digital payments technology is increasing due to the convenience and speed these...
Capitalizing on Bank-Centric Bill Payment Opportunity
Capitalizing on Bank-Centric Bill Payment Opportunity With U.S. consumers paying approximately 15 billion bills valued at $4 trillion annually, nearly 30 percent of all consumer spending comes in...
Strengthening Small-Business Relationships with Payments
Community banks have long served the small-business market, but given the pandemic impact, new opportunities have emerged to support these customers’ payments needs and address areas of friction.
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...
ICBA Bancard tool helps community banks assess their small business payments readiness
ICBA Bancard tool helps community banks assess their small business payments readiness From having to adapt to retail closings, diminished staff and customer capacities, a new work-from-home...
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...
Meeting Customers Where They Are for Today’s Digital-First World
Meeting Customers Where They Are for Today’s Digital-First World For community banks, the digital-first nature of today’s world creates an opportunity to forge deeper connections with existing...
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Primer
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Primer As you know, there are currently two forms of central bank money in America: paper currency and money held by institutions on deposit at the Federal...
How Community Banks Can Help Customers Evaluate Buy Now, Pay Later Offerings
How Community Banks Can Help Customers Evaluate Buy Now, Pay Later Offerings Buy now, pay later or BNPL, is the latest cautionary payments tale for community banks. Much like digital wallets, its...
Expanding Interchange Price Controls Would Put Fraud Protections at Risk
Maintaining strong risk-mitigation technologies has never been more important for the banking industry, but “big box” merchant lobbyists are attempting to disrupt advances in card fraud mitigation...
Faster Payments Have Arrived — Now What?
Faster Payments Have Arrived — Now What? Faster payments have arrived. Accelerated by the pandemic, the growth in digital and contactless payments has pushed consumer and business expectations...
The Rise of the Super App… and What Community Banks Can Do About It
Everyone, including big tech and social media players, want a super app. That’s according to a 2022 report, which underscores that the threat is real.
Why ICBA opposes flawed Marshall-Durbin Amendment expansion legislation
Despite ICBA’s persistent communications on the negative impact of Durbin Amendment interventions on payment card systems, its latest iteration furthers the misguided policies of the past that will...
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. Recent Federal Reserve...
Three Financial Technology Trends Community Banks Should Consider for 2023
When I attended FinovateFall in September, I was struck by its palpable energy. Not only was it the most attended Finovate to date, it was a collaborative conference, converting what had once felt...
Faster Payments Have Arrived — Now What About Competition, Fraud, and Strategy? Part 2
Here's part two of a continuing conversation on faster payments, diving into Same Day ACH, competition, fraud, and strategic vision.
Seven Myths About Central Bank Digital Currencies
In the latest edition of our Digital Dollar Digest series, ICBA is here to help dispel CBDC misconceptions and debunk the most common myths.
Merchants and Consumers Benefit from Credit Card Rewards Programs
The first rewards credit card was introduced by American Airlines in 1934 to help it sell tickets. Ninety years later, merchants accepting credit cards and issuing co-branded rewards cards continue...
Four things to know about faster and instant payments
Consumers and businesses are increasingly using payment platforms that allow them to pay or transfer money faster than ever before, with U.S. faster payments transactions topping $900 billion in 2020.
Why Small Business See a (Use) Case for Instant Payments
According to the Federal Reserve, nine in 10 businesses (or 29.25 million) expect to be able to send and receive instant payments by 2023. Fortunately, in many cases, community-based financial...
ICBA Center for Innovation: The Next Chapter in Fostering Community Bank-Fintech Partnerships
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...
Powering Potential through Community Bank Innovation
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...
Summit speakers: COVID-19 changed banking, payments
The COVID-19 pandemic altered customers’ expectations and the way they operate within the banking and finance sector, two presenters said Aug. 16 at the inaugural VenCent Fintech Summit held in...
3-2-1 We Have Contactless!
3-2-1 We Have Contactless! Tina Giorgio: Contactless transactions include everything from flashing your watch at the point-of-sale to paying for your groceries, via your refrigerator. As “smart”...
Navigating the New Norm with Digital Optimization
Navigating the New Norm with Digital Optimization In determining what this new business-as-usual will look like for your bank, it is important to identify where your customers are now and how their...
Safeguarding Against Fraud in a COVID-19 Era
Safeguarding Against Fraud in a COVID-19 Era Despite numerous warnings from the FBI, IRS and others, fraudsters are capitalizing on the pandemic to take advantage of consumers, highlighting the...
COVID-19: Considerations for Card Issuers
COVID-19: Considerations for Card Issuers Community banks are the stars of the financial services industry, and during times of crisis community bankers burn brightly to provide a guiding light to...
Three Steps to Support Customers in Today’s Digital Environment
Three Steps to Support Customers in Today’s Digital Environment We are in unprecedented times. “Shelter-in-place” acts help slow of the spread of coronavirus, but at the same time, they inject...
Reflecting on ICBA Bancard’s 35-Year History of Success
Reflecting on ICBA Bancard’s 35-Year History of Success In celebration of ICBA Bancard’s 35th anniversary, I sat down with our Chairman Greg Deckard, president, CEO and chairman of State Bank...
Positioning ICBA Bancard for the Future: What’s Your Why?
Positioning ICBA Bancard for the Future: What’s Your Why? Back in 1985, the first Macintosh computer debuted, and by today’s standards, it was a boxy, clunky, slow unit, yet Consumer Reports gave...
The Big Trouble with Big Tech
The Big Trouble with Big Tech Last month Google unveiled its new Google Pay app—complete with a DDA-like account attached. This latest effort by Google is part of a trend of non-bank tech...
Agencies request information on targeting payments fraud
ICBA applauded the federal banking agencies for announcing a request for comment on potential actions to help consumers, businesses, and financial institutions mitigate risk of payments fraud, with...
ICBA seeks participants for cross-border payments group
ICBA is seeking 12-15 community bankers to join its working group on cross-border payments.
ICBA Applauds House Financial Services Committee for Advancing Pro-Community Bank 1071, De Novo, Anti-CBDC Bills
The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) commended the House Financial Services Committee for advancing three ICBA-advocated bills to support community banks and the local communities...
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...
Independent Banker: Faster payments don’t have to lead to faster fraud
Addressing real-time payments fraud requires a combination of techniques—there's no silver bullet—according to the latest Independent Banker magazine.
ICBA Celebrates Success of Regulator and Core Days in Advancing Community Banking Innovation
The Independent Community Bankers of America® (ICBA) recently celebrated the successful conclusion of two important events during its current ThinkTECH Accelerator cohort (AP6), Regulator Day and...
ICBA seeking referrals for seventh ThinkTECH Accelerator
ICBA is now accepting applications for its seventh ThinkTECH Accelerator program, which promotes growth-stage companies that serve or wish to serve community banks and their customers.
Payments council releases instant payments operational guide
The U.S. Faster Payments Council released a new resource for banks working to implement instant payments.
ICBA urging outreach on 1071, credit card legislation
ICBA continues urging community bankers to reach out to their lawmakers on two key initiatives pending in Congress.