CURRENCIES BANKER'S HOURS BY CHRISTOPHER WEYANT THE CHECKLIST 5 key questions when evaluating your board Your board is critical to building a community bank with its eye on the future. HOW DIVERSE IS YOUR BOARD? Whether it be race/ethnicity, gender, years of experience or industry, it's important to have board members with a wide range of perspectives. Recycling the same ideologies creates a stagnant and uninformed board. " The only thing not frozen about me are my assets. " ARE THEY DEVELOPING PROFESSIONALLY? Ideal board members should be focused on fulfilling their role and staying up to date on all trends and issues that could aff ect the bank. NEWS ICBA Payments releases vision for the future With more than 1,500 collective clients between it and its subsidiary agent credit card bank TCM Bank, ICBA Payments (formerly ICBA Bancard) has a loyal customer base it's eager to please through product-focused innovation. Through a new partnership with fintech Pidgin, an ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator alumnus, ICBA Payments will enable FedNow realtime payments via modern APIs. It also aims to work with other third parties to off er its audience further customer-facing and backoff ice payment solutions. Read more about ICBA Payments' plans at icba.org/payments 14 // ICBA Independent Banker // December 2024 DO THEY FEEL COMFORTABLE SPEAKING THEIR MIND? Engaging with the rest of the board is crucial to achieving the bank's goals. Make sure your board members are not simply going through the motions. HOW COMMITTED ARE THEY TO THE BANK? If certain board members have overpowering responsibilities elsewhere, it could be beneficial to find someone who can dedicate more time to your bank. ARE BOARD SUCCESSION PLANNING PROCEDURES IN PLACE? Be transparent with your board members. Map out what the board will need in the future and build a qualified pool of candidates. -Coltrane Brennanhttp://www.icba.org/payments