With the 2018 ICBA Capital Summit just weeks away, I’ve never been more impressed by the strength of community banks!

Tina Giorgio: With threats continuing to emerge, I sat down with ICBA’s cyber expert, Jeremy Dalpiaz, assistant vice president of cyber and data security policy, to discuss what community banks can do to thwart cyberattacks. Our conversation uncovered three important tips for banks in navigating today’s cyber landscape.

​A big “THANK YOU” to all who completed our online training survey in January! The information shared is extremely valuable to ensure ICBA’s Community Banker University Online Training Center is moving in the right direction.

We’re just a few short weeks away from next month’s ICBA Community Banking LIVE® national convention—the biggest show in community banking in the world! And to top it all off, it will be my last as ICBA president and CEO.

As the calendar has now flipped to January, we know your bank has the large task of assigning employees annual training and ensuring your bank’s training program is robust, engaging, and comprehensive. It is a major task for banks and we hope you will take advantage of the 300-plus courses that ICBA has to offer in its online training library.

Tina Giorgio: There’s something about the start of a new year that breeds optimism and fresh perspective. Challenges give way to opportunities, and obstacles become puzzles to solve. That positive tenacity intensifies for me as I look at 2018, a year in banking like no other. From the digital revolution to the role of fintechs, a new day has dawned, and in its light, we see the sprouting progression of community banking.

Sheltered Harbor is a financial services sector initiative that enables financial institutions to securely store and rapidly reconstitute account information while recovering from a cyber incident or natural disaster.

Tina Giorgio: When I gaze back on my career, I see peaks and the valleys; the times where I knew where I was headed and the times where I felt I was driving at night without headlights. In my role as a community banker, in particular, things seemed to accelerate with lightning speed. Sometimes, I was clairvoyant, reading that market crystal ball like a road map, and sometimes, well, let’s just say that we adapted.

To give community bankers the lay of the land on the fast-paced and fluctuating tax reform debate, ICBA released a new informational brief with the latest details.

Tina Giorgio: My goal is not only to ensure that community banks stay relevant when it comes to real-time payments but ensure that solution providers are delivering affordable, integrated solutions for community banks that are easy for them to deploy,