Iowa-based Lincoln Savings Bank’s banking-as-a-service program proves that community banks can successfully build fintech partnerships by properly scaling the offering and hiring experienced risk compliance executives. [Continue]
Recent years have brought challenges, but certain tensions have started to ease for farmers and ranchers throughout the Midwest, as well as for the ag bankers they partner with, to keep their farms going. [Continue]
Community banking experts say the industry remains strong in the wake of the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. [Continue]
Lots of stories have emerged over the past few years about community banks quickly pivoting to digital solutions during the pandemic. Avidia Bank in Hudson, Mass., was slightly ahead of the curve, bringing on new technology for residential mortgages in December 2019. “We could see that was the direction the industry was headed into, and if we wanted to stay competitive, we needed to adopt it,” says Laura J. Hughes, vice president and CRA officer at the bank. [Continue]
Anticipating and meeting the demands of the future will require nothing less than fortitude. Will sticking to key fundamentals be enough to grow and thrive? [Continue]
The clock that used to decorate the front of the El Dorado branch of Citizens Bank of Kansas had long ceased to keep accurate time when the bank decided to replace it last year. The company which could service the clock was based in Iowa, and summoning its workers every time the clock’s mechanism went awry no longer made sense, said Shannon Beal, branch president in the southern Kansas town of about 13,000. [Continue]
In the community of Fond du Lac, Wis., where the average temperatures range from a low of nine degrees Fahrenheit in January to a high of 81 in July, it’s temperate in all seasons inside Horicon Bank’s branch.
That’s because of a cooling and heating system that draws geothermal energy from far under the ground.
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The time was right.”
Brian Nicklason, president and CEO of Grand Rapids, Minn.-based Woodland Bank, knew that his growing bank needed more space. The $132 million bank had been operating for several years in a 5,000-square-foot building once occupied by a hotel and had always planned to move into a larger facility. [Continue]
The commercial real estate lending outlook for the next 12 months is shrouded in the same uncertainty that the broader economy faces: Rising interest rates, stubbornly high inflation readings and recessionary fears. The forecast, however, isn’t entirely pessimistic.
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Michael Felts, a businessman who until recently operated a string of convenience stores across rural Kansas, had already served on the board of Citizens Bank of Kansas for a decade when the unthinkable happened: The man who’d recruited him, longtime owner and Board Chair Max Deterding, died unexpectedly. [Continue]