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. That doesn’t mean composing Shakespearean sonnets for your coworkers, but it does mean showing up in a meaningful way.

Relationship banking is nothing new to community banks. Novel underwriting techniques and recent regulatory guidance have enabled community banks to understand and serve their customers even better.

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 of their government, business and consumer constituents.

In the wake of #MeToo, a growing number of U.S. states are enacting their own harassment and discrimination prevention laws. California and New York are notable examples; both states have implemented reforms requiring mandatory employee and supervisor training with specific content and/or timing requirements.

Your perspective as a community-based, taxpaying business is exceptionally helpful to the people who write and enforce the regulations you (and credit unions) must follow. In this blog post, we’ll touch on our top priorities and give you the tactics you’ll need to help make your banking advocacy resolutions a reality.

The latest iteration of the Fed’s triennial study showed that in 2018, noncash payments¹ amounted to $97 trillion, with transaction volume reaching more than 174 billion. That kind of market opens new opportunities for community banks.

In banking, one thing is for certain – and that is change. With the advent of new technologies and solutions, education will be the indispensable complement to ensure community banks can take advantage of the opportunity these changes afford.

As we welcomed in the new decade, ICBA signaled its ongoing commitment to community banking innovation with the launch of our second ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator program.

ICBA's Kevin Tweddle discusses unexpected benefits of ICBA's ThinkTECH Accelerator program with community bankers John Buhrmaster of First National Bank of Scotia, N.Y., and Scott McComb of Heartland Bank in Whitehall, Ohio.

The oldest Millennials are pushing 40 and are well established in the financial services landscape, but with Gen Z—the elders of whom are college-aged—we have a digital native group with new expectations.