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Main Street Matters Blog

Find out what's happening in communities across America, from grassroots advocacy efforts, to fintech innovations and everyday successes of Main Street banks.

Main Street Matters

Building ICBA’s Innovation Team

Feb 7, 2020
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 bankers remain steadfast in putting the customer relationship first.

Into the weeds on the QM patch

Feb 4, 2020
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 developments in Washington bear that out.

Leading alongside our teams

Feb 1, 2020
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.

Finding 65 million consumers: Using alternative data to acquire new customers

Jan 31, 2020
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.

Navigating a New Decade of Payments

Jan 30, 2020
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.

Resolve to Take Grassroots Action in 2020

Jan 23, 2020
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.

New Driver of Payments Growth: Fed Study Shows Debit Transactions As Opportunity for Community Banks

Jan 22, 2020
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.

Capitalizing on Change in 2020

Jan 14, 2020
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.

ThinkTECH Accelerator: Purposeful Development

Jan 10, 2020
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.

Unexpected Benefits of ICBA’s ThinkTECH Accelerator

Jan 3, 2020
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.