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 surveys reveal growing interest in faster payments

When I attended FinovateFall in September, I was struck by its palpable energy. Not only was it the most well attended Finovate to date with roughly 1,800 attendees and 64 participating companies, it was a widely collaborative conference, converting what had once felt like a competitive environment into one of enablement.

In the first half of 2022, there were 817 data breaches in the U.S., and combined with data leaks and data exposure, they impacted more than 53 million individuals. These are alarming numbers, but they could have been much worse without the use of some form of multifactor authentication.

The consequences of uncoordinated regulatory standards at the federal level are creating an artificial problem at the local level, potentially endangering many community banks’ ability to lend to local customers.

October has been a busy month at ICBA Community Banker University, and we hope that your staff are benefiting from the additional courses we have added to the course catalog, not to mention several exciting new enhancements!

With the producer price index down, can we say we are past peak inflation? Not really. Getting behind the reason for the decline of the overall PPI indicates inflation will be here for quite some time.

We are at the very beginning of exploring the opportunities the metaverse may provide. And while the path forward may be long, financial institutions need to start assessing what those opportunities look like for them.

Community banking is a cyclical industry, and its earnings have some correlation to market interest rates. Discounts are the story of the day, so let’s review how discount-priced bonds can be used strategically to improve portfolio performance.

Big things are happening in the Community Banker University online training world and for you as a subscriber! Please read through this newsletter carefully and contact Community Banker University with any questions.

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.