Independent Banker - January 2024 - 20

PORTFOLIO INNOVATION STATION
The powerful role
of data in community
bank innovation
By Charles Potts, ICBA
ata is king. Everyone-from
Big Tech to retailers to systems
providers-prioritizes data for its ability
to deliver on revenue expectations.
Looking to improve the customer
experience? Data tells a story. Want
to strengthen fraud prevention? Data
provides protections. Striving to
prioritize the projects on your to-do
list? Data leads the way.
D
Accelerator
introduces small
business and datacentric
fintechs
For these reasons and more, the
overarching narrative for community
banks in 2024 will center on all things
data: how to uncover, understand, mine
and activate the data you have for the
benefi t of the customers you serve.
From our experiences with the
PPP, we've learned the importance of
identifying a need and reporting on the
outsized role community banks played in
Join ICBA for our sixth
ThinkTECH Accelerator,
featuring fintechs that can
help community banks with
small business banking
and data analytics. Banks
are welcome to sign up
for one-on-one or group
sessions with the cohort.
To schedule a time, visit
icba.org/thinktech
servicing small businesses in their hour of
need. But now the charge is to make sure
we're retaining those valued customers,
attracting new ones and expanding our
services to meet their evolving needs.
The strategic approach to small
business banking is predicated on better
data analysis. Community banks have
to ask, " Where are my small business
customers moving money? Where
am I losing deposits? What products
and services are they getting from
somebody else that I don't have, or I do
and they're not using? " The answers to
those questions come from existing data
points, including payments. Community
banks can investigate transactions, and
the account they give may defi ne product
development next steps.
Yet this data quarrying doesn't have to
be a manual process. Fintechs can help
banks automate the review, pull out the
central narrative and prioritize actions
around it. Finding the right partner can
be as simple as checking out our current
ThinkTECH Accelerator cohort, which
is focused on small business needs and
data analytics (see sidebar). We heard
from bankers that these are two key
areas where they need solutions, and the
companies in this cohort directly refl ect
that input.
So, as the new year gets started and
priorities abound, I come back to an
oft-repeated phrase: It's about working
smarter, not harder. Data analytics off ers
a tool to do just that, helping community
banks excel in new ways by identifying
the right opportunities.
Data may be king, but ultimately,
community banks will reign supreme
if they can harness it to benefi t their
customers and communities.
Charles Potts (charles.potts@icba.org)
is ICBA executive vice president and
chief innovation off icer.
20 // ICBA Independent Banker // January 2024
Illustration by Rax Qiu/Adobe
http://www.icba.org/thinktech
Independent Banker - January 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Independent Banker - January 2024
