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Charles Potts: The Process of Bringing Innovation to You
Technology has become an integral part of success in banking.
What Innovative Advantage Does Cloud Lending Give Community Banks?
Community banks are using cloud technology to improve efficiency and enhance customer convenience. See how cloud lending is transforming operations for banks and borrowers alike.
Maximizing Profitability with Today's Point-of-Sale Tech
The goal of community banks in a digital age: Be top of wallet. Learn how to take advantage of growing POS innovations like digital wallets.
Charles Potts: Turning Strategy Into Success With the Right Tech
In the current economic environment, your bank’s strategy is worth its weight in gold.
Proven Practices For Back-Office Efficiency
Shrinking net interest margins, rising costs, and manual processes challenge community banks to maintain efficiency and profitability in a competitive market.
IT MSP, Integris, Reveals Top IT Trends for the Second Year in New Report, “Understanding US Banks’ Annual IT Spend in 2025”
Discover where banks stand on technology in 2025! Our survey of 1,000+ bank executives reveals IT’s growing role, key infrastructure needs, cybersecurity concerns, and economic impacts.
Kick Lending Up a Notch With Digital Solutions
Increased efficiency and fewer errors are just two of the benefits of digitalizing your loan production process.
Easing the Way: Current and Upcoming Banking Technology Trends
The best technology is the kind that supports both the customer and the community bank. We look at some key industry challenges and where tech could potentially ease pain points.
Charles Potts: How Fintech Relationships Can Lessen Compliance Burdens
Compliance consistently ranks as one of the highest business expenses for community banks, and that cost is expected to climb.
Charles Potts: 4 Natural Advantages of Solution Provider Partnerships
I have been evangelizing for a while about the importance of strategic partnerships, and now, we’ve come to a place where these very relationships are bolstering community banks’ businesses.
Practical Tips for Community Bank Innovation
Innovation doesn’t just happen. It takes forethought, planning and follow-through.
Balancing Innovation & Cost Control: A Community Banker’s Guide
Shopping for new technology can often feel like a lose-lose situation. With this guide, you’ll learn how to innovate smarter and spend wiser. A high-level, must-read for bank executives,...
Understanding the Opportunities and Concerns for Agentic AI
Here’s what you need to know about the newest form of AI, known as agentic AI.
Up-and-Coming Bank Technology: Separating Innovation from Hype
Community bankers, fintech experts and consultants alike are keeping their finger on the pulse when it comes to the latest technology—with the goal of understanding what’s useful and what’s...
Could a Fintech Help Your Community Bank Keep Up With Faster Payments?
The faster payments landscape is constantly evolving—but staying on top of it can provide community banks with a competitive edge. Could working with a fintech be key to that success?
How to Successfully Negotiate a Fintech Partnership
Partnering with one or more fintechs can help community banks keep up with the pace of technological development. Community bankers and other experts give us their tips for finding the right fit.
Tech Solutions That Can Help Stop Elder Fraud
Elder financial abuse is a rising crime across the country. Using technology, community bankers can help detect this type of fraud and protect their customers.
6 Things Community Banks Need to Know About Cybersecurity Today
From dealing with emerging cyber threats to finding ways to get all your employees to be aware and proactive, we spoke to community bankers and experts about the tools and knowledge that will help...
How Technology Can Simplify Banks' Workflow
As compliance obligations mount, community bankers reveal the benefits regtech brings to their banks and offer tips for finding the right partners.
Charles Potts: The Myth, Lure and Reality of AI
AI has become more advanced, but in a cost-effective manner, making it available to the masses.
How community banks can minimize tech debt
Keeping old technology can be expensive, in terms of not only cost but also the missed opportunities to offer customers new solutions. The good news is, there are ways community banks can cut...
Add text-to-pay to your payments toolbox
When it comes to payments, customers want convenience. With text-to-pay, community banks can help small businesses meet the needs of their customers.
The benefits of offering virtual advisor services
Spurred by social distancing and shutdowns during the pandemic, many community banks turned to virtual financial advisory services, and these new practices are expected to stick around.
Charles Potts: Assesing potential fintech partners
Maximizing each step in the innovation journey, including the fintech evaluation process, will set you on the right path to a fruitful fintech partnership.
3 Simple Strategies to Maximize your Financial Education Offerings
SPONSORED—The absence of accessible, effective financial education is decreasing the average financial literacy rate, thus handicapping people’s potential financial prosperity. This crisis of...
Union Savings Bank’s tech touch
By partnering with fintechs, Union Savings Bank has rolled out an innovative digital tool that uses AI to help customers achieve financial wellbeing.
Charles Potts: Innovation trends for 2023
As we turn the page to a new year, the innovation evolution continues. ICBA is leaning into it, bringing its ThinkTECH Accelerator program and innovation efforts in-house to provide community...
Super apps: The rise of an all-in-one platform
Convenience is a growing desire from consumers everywhere. Across the world, people are using super apps to send messages, purchase tickets and, of course, bank online. What are they, and how can...
3 ways to spot the right tech partner for banking innovation
SPONSORED | The right tech partner can be the difference between growing your business and watching it grind to a halt. Read our latest guide to learn which questions to ask and what to look for...
Rebeca Romero Rainey: Navigating the digital movement
The habits of our customers change, and we’re constantly walking beside them, transforming our services to meet their needs.
Imaginative innovation in the banking loyalty space with Zogo Finance
SPONSORED | Powered by gamification, encouragement, and, of course, the latest technology, Zogo’s Mobile Banking Loyalty Integration is the ideal solution to bolstering your bank’s customer...
Improve your community bank’s core with APIs
Application programming interfaces enable community banks to improve elements of their core architectures without extensive and costly system overhauls. Banks and core processing providers are now...
Charles Potts: Unlocking better customer connections
When assessing providers, keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all marketing solution. The beauty of innovation is that it comes in all shapes and sizes. Your marketing capabilities must fit...
Why community banks should partner with fintechs
With consumer expectations seeming to evolve faster every year, community banks could consider partnering with a fintech to keep up with technological innovation.
Charles Potts: Next-level collaboration
ICBA has a growing network of people and resources community banks can tap into as they continue their innovation journeys. The ThinkTECH Accelerator is one of several initiatives underway this...
New Era of Consumer Engagement by Mladen Vladic
Over the past 18 months, the marketplace has experienced huge disruptions. The world has changed, and so have consumers. In fact. 75% of consumers have changed their spending habits since early 2020.
Charles Potts: 2021: A year of awakening
Community bankers’ awakening to new possibilities has made for an impactful year and will help position community banks to flourish in 2022 and beyond.
How 3 community banks are innovating with fintechs
The best fintech companies aren’t just service providers. They’re partners. Three community bank-fintech partnerships tell us how they’ve forged mutually beneficial relationships that thrive on a...
Rebeca Romero Rainey: Prepare your cyber defenses
While there’s no cyber or data security silver bullet, by bringing the theoretical into a true banking environment, we can begin to establish action plans that speak to real-world attacks.
What is open banking and what does it mean for you?
Open banking is a buzzword in the banking industry, but what exactly does it mean, and how will it affect you? From application programming interfaces to fintech partnerships, it’s been applied to...
Charles Potts: Embrace the digital experience
Consider ICBA your partner and advocate on the digital transformation journey. That’s why ThinkTECH exists and why we continually innovate to introduce new resources as the industry evolves.
Meet 2021’s ThinkTECH Accelerator finalists
Starting in 2018, ICBA’s ThinkTECH Accelerator has helped create a new ecosystem of community bank-friendly fintechs through a rigorous incubator boot camp involving hundreds of community bankers...
Charles Potts: A culture of innovation
Innovation is a high priority for many community bank leaders, so it’s critical that we have a foundational definition of innovation.
What you need to know about digital issuance
Instant issue cards are becoming more common at financial institutions, as they can maximize card usage and even attract customers. But another option, digital issuance, combines that speed with...
Stop elder financial abuse with data analytics
Elder financial abuse has been on the rise for the past decade, but so has data analytics technology, which banks can use to fight this fraud. Experts share strategies for community banks to...
Community First Bank’s PPP partnership
With little time to spare, Community First Bank prepared itself for a wave of Paycheck Protection Program applications by quickly implementing technology through a new fintech partner. Now, it’s...
Charles Potts: 6 innovation trends for 2021
As we start the new year, much remains uncertain. In general, “uncertainty” implies a state of limited knowledge that makes it impossible or impracticable to describe a future outcome.
The bank pioneering banking as a service
With the help of a fintech partnership, Coastal Community Bank has blazed a trail by providing banking as a service (BaaS).
How the world's banks are using the IoT
Banks and fintechs are experimenting with web-connected devices—collectively, the Internet of Things (IoT). While some experiments have worked and some have failed, their efforts offer a...
Secrets of 4 community bank–fintech partnerships
Community banks and fintechs are working together to boost internal efficiency and improve the customer experience. But good partnerships don’t just run like clockwork. They require close...
How to build a successful payments strategy
Customer expectations and fierce competition—it’s never been more important to think strategically about your payments offering.
Charles Potts: How the Regtech Revolution Represents Banking Today
In many ways, ICBA’s core pillars—advocacy, education and innovation—define today’s community bank priorities.