Independent Banker - July 2020 - 70

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How three banks optimized
their payments strategies
A free, interactive tool and guide from ICBA Bancard and Aite Group is
helping community bankers to tailor their digital payments strategies to
their customers' needs. By Mary Yerkes
ustomer demand for digital payments
continues to rise, and with
it, the number of serious competitors
contending for market share. Although
community banks have long realized
the benefits of digital payments, only
19% of financial institutions say they
have a clear digital strategy in place
and a roadmap for digitization.
For member banks, ICBA Bancard's
free Digital Payments Strategy Tool
and Guide, developed in partnership
with Aite Group, offers a responsive
Q&A assessment, developed to help
community bankers create a custom
digital payments strategy, and a digitization
road map for their customers.
By answering the questions posed in
the tool, community banks gain insight
into the maturity of their digital
payments strategy and their ranking
among peers. The result is a road map
that provides guidance on where to
C
start and how to take their strategy to
the next level.
Here, three community banks share
their experiences using the Digital
Payments Strategy Tool and Guide and
how others might benefit from what
they learned.
Citizens Bank of Las Cruces
Citizens Bank of Las Cruces in Las
Cruces, N.M., has always relied on
manual processes to monitor its digital
offerings and compare them with
its competitors'. But with technology
and digital strategy constantly changing,
bank leadership found themselves
wondering if they were choosing products
that their customers want and
need. The $640 million-asset community
bank approached the digital
strategy and tool looking for answers.
" The tool gave us new ideas for
monitoring our delivery channels,
1
specifically ACH transactions, " says
Ruth Christopher, chief financial
officer and executive vice president.
" We are tracking ACH transactions
and watching the growth of those
transactions, but we are not breaking
down transactions by specific type. "
It's now on the bank's to-do list. " We
came up with the idea having gone
through this tool. It helped us better
understand our customers' behavior
and usage, " she says. " If we know what
the customers are using, then we can
encourage other customers who are
not using those types to do so. "
Citizens Bank of Las Cruces plans
to work on its strategic plan later this
year and will incorporate some of the
ideas expressed in the road map to expand
on what the community bank is
currently doing. " It will make us more
competitive, " Christopher says, " and,
in the end, it will also help us improve
the bottom line. "
2
Coulee Bank
When Mike Gargaro, chief operating
officer of $386 million-asset
Coulee Bank in La Crosse, Wis., completed
the online assessment, he was
surprised to learn that his bank scored
three out of four in the tool's digital
payments maturity model, which measures
what state a bank is at in the
development process of a digital payments
strategy.
" Bankers like to use peer groups
as a measuring stick, and this tool
gives you an idea where you sit in
70 Q ICBA Independent Banker Q July 2020
Independent Banker - July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Independent Banker - July 2020
