Independent Banker - January 2020 - 47

Community Bank CEO Outlook 2020
offered technologies like mobile banking and remote
capture for years and are now looking to refine existing
offerings, such as First Citrus Bank's website.
" Today, it's a little too transactional, and we have an
opportunity to make the virtual branch more engaging
so it's accessed as a resource for our clients, associates,
shareholders and our community, " says Barrett, who plans
to add content like articles and videos for consumers and
small business owners.
The customer-facing technologies of most interest
to community banks are online loan and/or deposit
origination and updating mobile platforms and remote
What initiatives does your community bank
anticipate introducing, if any, to increase its
income in 2020?
10%
5.6%
Merge with
another
community
bank
8.9%
" For us, loan growth has been
challenging, largely due to
the characteristics of the rural
markets we bank. We're hoping
that some of changes we made will
help us to kickstart into 2020. "
-Tom Moran, Community Bank
deposit. Person-to-person payments (14%), especially
Zelle (6%), are also expected to be considered for
adoption this year.
" We're at a good spot in that service contracts are
coming up, " says Bailey, who is in the RFP (request for
proposal) process and is looking to beef up customerfacing
technologies like mobile banking, online account
opening and automating loan application process.
Change at the core
Looking internally to operations, 2020 is likely to be a big
year for cores, as 23% of CEO respondents are looking at
core software, including conversions, upgrades, searching
for open cores and renewing existing controls.
Golden Valley Bank's core software contract is up this
year, so it's in the process of negotiating a new one.
" The biggest change will be with the ancillary
products connected to the core, " Francis says. " With
the rise of fintech, virtually all of these ancillary
products can be purchased from these new upstarts,
many times for a better product at a lower cost. That's
Add or
increase
service fees
63.3%
Grow an existing
line of business
Run a marketing
campaign
12.2%
Add a new line
of business or a
new service
the direction we are headed. "
Prairie Community Bank's core contract is also expiring.
The bank will look at new products like online account
opening and an improved P2P payments solution after
it decides whether to stick with its existing core or adopt
another. It's also eagerly awaiting the introduction
of FedNow Service, a new interbank real-time gross
settlement service that will enable banks to deliver end-toend
faster payments services to their customers.
Another 17% of community bank CEO respondents are
looking at instant card issuance. Other popular operational
improvements include loan and new account processing
and automation, better document storage, and software
that provides deeper insights into customers.
Rather than buy new operational software, Brentwood
Bank is looking to more fully use what it already has. The
community bank has brought on an employee dedicated
to training.
It's also monitoring the impact of Bank of America
moving into a market dominated by PNC Bank. While
the megabanks aren't direct competitors, they drive
customers' technology expectations, Bailey says.
" Everyone is all charged up with how to compete
against the large behemoths, " he says. " I just read
that Bank of America has 22,000 people working on
artificial intelligence. "
While Brentwood Bank can't compete with that
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Independent Banker - January 2020

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