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• 12/29/2021

Financial technology, or fintech, is changing how consumers and businesses bank. While digital banking options like mobile check deposit and automatic bill payment have been available for about 20 years, other services made possible by fintech—such as digital wallets and person-to-person payments—are relatively recent and are increasingly being adopted by banks of all sizes. Thus far most banks, especially community banks, have opted to partner with fintech firms to provide these services to their customers.

• 12/9/2021

The vast majority of commercial banks that have ever operated in the U.S. have disappeared. Since its all-time high of 30,456 in 1921, the bank population had declined to only 4,377 at the end of 2020, a decline of about 86%. Even since 1934, after the 1933 bank holiday closed thousands of banks and the newly established Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) stabilized the banking system, the bank population has declined by 71%, or 10,973 institutions.

• 10/28/2021

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was the focus of several papers at this year’s Community Banking in the 21st Century Research and Policy Conference, and their findings were very much in line with the conference’s overall theme of industry resilience and innovation. 

• 10/5/2021

The nation’s community bankers are emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic a little battered but somewhat buoyed by operational changes that have turned into newfound efficiencies.

• 8/31/2021

Two years ago, community banks cited the availability and cost of funding as their greatest challenges, according to the Conference of State Bank Supervisors’ 2019 National Survey of Community Banks. Interest rates had recently risen, increasing the cost of deposits and prompting more reliance on wholesale funding.