Main Street Matters Blog

The significant upheaval in the crypto markets—and its impact on consumers and national security—has accelerated Washington’s attention to digital assets policy. Prudential banking regulators, the White House, and the Treasury Department have pursued a range of intertwining policy initiatives, all with direct consequences for the nation’s community banks.

Remaining aware of developments in the digital assets industry is critical as crypto entities seek greater access to the traditional financial system and policymakers in Congress deliberate paths forward.

With traditional backup and recovery systems at risk of compromise in the event of a malware attack on IT systems, ICBA helped found the Sheltered Harbor initiative to protect against cybercrime.

Sixty percent of all fintech startups are intersecting with the payments space in some manner. Increasingly, they’re partnering with banks or targeting their offerings directly to support community bank operations. Cue the rise of the banking- and payments-as-a-service relationship as exhibit A.

Innovation, like time, is constantly moving forward, which is why even before we wrapped up our 2023 ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator program, plans were well underway for the first of three ICBA ThinkTECH Solutions Forums this year.

A lot has changed in the 15 years that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been in federal conservatorship, including a restoration of the health of the mortgage market and the financial strength of these housing-focused enterprises. What hasn’t changed is the need for the federal government to follow established law and ensure its conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie is temporary.

FedNow launched on July 20—with eager anticipation from the payments industry. But in the past month, we’ve not heard much about transaction volume, use cases, or user experiences. Fortunately, our senior vice president of payments industry relations, Nick Denning, has been following FedNow closely and shared with me his insider’s view on where things stand for FedNow and community banks.

It’s been an exciting week at ICBA. After months of behind-the-scenes work to fulfill our vision of building an online national professional network exclusively for community bankers, our ICBA Community officially launched July 11. The numbers speak to its overwhelming reception by ICBA members.

We urged the FDIC to finalize the rule as proposed and applauded the agency for using an assessment base that will result in no special assessments for any community bank with less than $5 billion in assets.

The FedNow Service’s launch is a milestone in the Fed’s payments improvement journey, but it does not mark the end of the path. In the near term, ICBA urges community banks to focus on faster payments adoption.