Community Banking in 2021

Community banks have always been good at creating lifetime customers, but evolving technology and customer demands can complicate your ability to satisfy customers post-pandemic. There is a running joke in the banking industry that the pandemic took five years of technology growth and pressed it into one. With the additional demands put on bankers by the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), that joke is one hundred percent true. Now that these digital expectations have been set, there’s no going back. Bankers can’t revert to doing things the same way they did before the pandemic. It’s just not an option.

An Affordable Way for Community Banks to Compete in Online Banking

The banking industry is completely changing (and fast!) due to this global pandemic. While banks are typically slow to adopt technological changes, the pandemic has accelerated this process by years. Digital offerings are not just conveniences anymore, but legitimate necessities for customers now. This adaptation can be more difficult for community banks with more limited resources than it is for large banks, but community banks still want to be players in the game.

Are Your Internal Workflows Holding You Back?

The modern community banker is caught in the crossfires of remaining traditional and being expected to adapt to accommodate a new generation of customers. Let’s face it—community bankers are expected to be all things to all people. Many community banks are juggling trying to serve rural customers with no internet access or even an email address, while simultaneously meeting the digital needs of younger and more fast-paced lifestyles.

Refining Your Bank’s Loan Review and Special Assets Processes for the Coming Economic Storm

Experts have been predicting a coming recession long before Coronavirus was on the world’s radar, but nobody was quite expecting the global health pandemic that is currently wreaking havoc on America’s economy. Current economic trends are being compared to those of The Great Recession of 2008. While there are some discrepancies between the two, this still leaves bankers with a little bit of an advantage in knowing what’s suspected to come— many loans are going to become criticized.

A Digital Detox to Prevent Burnout

Summer will be ending in just a few short weeks and perhaps the craziest, scariest, most uncertain school year of our lifetime will begin, affecting not just school-aged children and their families, but employers, coworkers, friends, relatives, everybody. While the whens and hows are still up in the air, it is for certain that school will resume next month one way or another.

Infographic: Keeping Your Digital Life Secure During COVID-19

No matter the year, month, or season, no matter the state of current affairs-- cybersecurity is important! In fact, scams have been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic left the world on lockdown (read more on these scams here), so there’s no better time to double check your security measures. Check out our infographic below as we share some wisdom on secure passwords from Teslar’s VP of Support, Chris Whittle.

COVID-19 Causes Financial Scams to Rise

Scams are always abundant in this day and age, but COVID-19 has quickly brought about societal shifts full of financial and economic uncertainty and of scared and vulnerable people, and scammers are already working the cause. Scam artists are always looking for opportunities to steal money and data from people and businesses, especially financial institutions. And this time is no different.

Women in Tech: An Interview with April Wolfe

Jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields have grown faster than the overall growth of employment in the U.S. Since 1990, overall employment has grown 34 percent while STEM jobs have grown 79 percent, according to data from Pew Research Center.

Research by The National Center for Women & Information Technology shows that, as of 2018, 57 percent of professional occupations are held by women, but only 26 percent of the 17.3 million people working in these fields are women. Needless to say, women in tech are the minority. I had the opportunity to chat with April Wolfe, a member of our Install team at Teslar to talk a little bit about what it’s like to be a woman working in the technology field.

Will the Next Financial Crisis Be One of Cyber Security?

There’s no skirting around the fact that cyber security is a major threat and cause for alarm today. In August 2019 alone, 114.6 million financial records were leaked in 95 breaches around the world¹—and that’s just the ones we know of. Only 10-12% of cybercrimes in the U.S. are reported.²

Wrapping Up National Cybersecurity Awareness Month

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) may be coming to an end, but we hope our continuous coverage has placed this very important topic at the top of your mind. Our goal this month was to provide tools, resources and information that can truly move the cybersecurity awareness needle.