UpTeD T he Friendship State Bank began 2020 with a clear retail vision. Margins were fat. Loan demand was good. Deposits were steady. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and a chain of events that changed everything. Branches shut down, and employees started working from home. Consumer adoption of drive-thrus and digital banking rose dramatically. The Federal Reserve surprised many bankers by dropping rates by 1%, from 1.25% to 0.25%, on a Sunday afternoon. " It was instant margin compression, " says Christopher Meyer, president and CEO of the $425 million-asset community bank in Friendship, Ind. " We were spoiled with wider margins than we'd ever had. " There isn't a community bank that didn't have its retail plans for 2020 upended. Initiatives were put on hold. Retail employees and customers adapted to new ways of doing business. In many cases, retail staff pivoted to fill newly emerging needs. This was supposed to be the year that $567 million-asset First Citrus Bank in Tampa, Fla., opened a full-service branch in St. Petersburg. The community bank was getting estimates on an interior build-out and was independentbanker.org Q 49http://www.independentbanker.org