Independent Banker Independent Community Bankers of America

Vendor relationships can be purely transactional, but the really high-value ones work more like partnerships. That’s certainly what Bob Fisher, president and CEO of Tioga State Bank in Spencer, N.Y., found when his bank hired cybersecurity fintech Beauceron Security of New Brunswick, Canada.
Beauceron cofounder and CEO David Shipley wants his company to be seen as a “worthy investment of time, effort and capital”—and it achieves this by treating clients like Tioga State Bank not as numbers but as true partners.
As well as discussing the ins and outs of their partnership, including how ICBA’s ThinkTECH Accelerator led them to each other, Fisher and Shipley offer tips for other community banks that want to forge or strengthen their own fintech relationships.
This episode is sponsored by Finastra. 
Links
If you’re joining your fellow community bankers at ICBA LIVE in Hawaii on March 12, 2023, check out the ICBA ThinkTECH Alumni Showcase on Sunday, March 12 at 8:30am, or stop by the Expo Hall on Sunday or Monday to catch up with Accelerator alumni like Beauceron Security. Lastly, you’ll find stories of fintech collaboration in our monthly magazine, also called Independent Banker.  
 

“It’s not hard to advocate for the perhaps underestimated but clearly formidable competitor.” That’s Anne Balcer’s view of her role as ICBA’s chief of government relations and public policy, which she took on in July 2022 after time at Forbright Bank, a community bank in Maryland, and in Maryland state government.
 
Balcer talks to host Charles Potts, ICBA’s chief innovation officer, about the value of her background as a community banker, the advocacy wins community banks saw last year, the issues she and her team are targeting in 2023, the critical role community bankers themselves play in advocacy….and even a little lacrosse.
 
Among the topics covered:
·      Durbin-Marshall bill
·      Regulatory clarity
·      Overdraft fees
·      Climate risk regulation
 
This episode is sponsored by Finastra

Banking solutions that have already been through vendor due diligence and other
compliance assessments? Sign us up. That’s what the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator has
aimed to do for the past four years: collaborate with fintechs to develop plug-and-play
solutions tailor-made for community banks.
In late 2022, ICBA announced it was bringing the Accelerator and all innovation activities
in house. In this episode, our guests reveal the reasons behind this move and give a glimpse
of how the association will develop initiatives that help community banks flourish.
Our guests today are:

- Wayne Miller, ICBA’s new senior vice president and director of innovation
activities, who is the former executive director of The Venture Center in Little Rock,
Ark., where the Accelerator got its start.
- Jack Hartings, chairman of the Peoples Bank in Coldwater, Ohio, who has been
involved with the Accelerator since the beginning and now sits on the cohort
selection committee.
Independent Banker: A Community Banking Podcast from ICBA is hosted by Charles Potts,
ICBA’s executive vice president and chief innovation officer.
Head to icba.org/thinktech to learn more about ICBA’s innovation activities or, if you’re a
fintech company looking to better understand the needs of community bankers, apply for
the 2023 Accelerator.

“Innovation isn’t magic,” says Tim Shangle, ChoiceOne Bank’s associate vice president of innovation and data analytics. “You don’t need a wizard to make your bank innovative. Innovation is simply something that is new today that will eventually become normal down the road.”
One key for community banks to harness a successful innovative strategy is by embracing the wealth of new talent—who, like Independent Banker’s 40 under 40 emerging community bank leaders, are the future faces of the industry.
In this episode of Communities of Innovation, Tim (a 40 Under 40 winner) joins host Charles Potts to discuss his role as an innovator—leading implementation of an online platform that overhauled the bank’s customer experience—and how, for banks, the secret of future success lies in building a culture that rewards talent and ambition.

“The people factor is about your culture,” notes Kathy Strasser, IncredibleBank’s Executive Vice President and COO. “You can have people with a digital mindset, but when you have a digital culture, that’s when you know you’ve got something special.”
Strasser knows the secret to finding success in digital: It’s about the people. That’s helped Wisconsin-based IncredibleBank grow from a small community bank subsidiary to one of today’s most innovative and influential community banks.
In this edition of Communities of Innovation, Strasser and host Charles Potts, ICBA’s Chief Innovation Officer, explore why people are the driving force of community banks’ digital transformation journeys.

“Today, in literal terms, everybody has to operate as that state-of-the-art bank,” says Kevin Piette, chief operating officer and chief information officer for State Bank of Cross Plains, in the newest episode of ICBA’s Communities of Innovation podcast. Cybersecurity is a growing priority today for community banks, which are up against an ever-increasing presence of hackers, security breaches and hidden threats. But, according to Piette and Jeff Newgard, president and CEO of Bank of Idaho, community banks shouldn’t just build a plan. They need an ecosystem of cybersecurity technology, relationships, and best practices.
Piette and Newgard are joined by host Charles Potts, ICBA’s chief innovation officer.