The Community Bank Roundtable is Ready for New Partnerships

Community Banks have successfully scaled through steady acquisition and growth. This acquisition strategy has helped to offset new compliance costs, compensate for declining customer acquisition and gain new deposits for commercial lending. As a result of acquisition the number of community banks is decreasing while regional banks are growing. Community banks are now faced with a number of key challenges from the need to scale technology and operations, intensified competition from larger banks in certain markets, evolving customer expectations and unrealized customer opportunities.

 The Community Bank Roundtable's key objective is to create a forum to provide value to Community Banks through research, best practices, compliance and regulatory expertise, best practices etc. Some additional information is provided below

 What is the Community Bank Roundtable?

 The Community Bank Roundtable was launched in early 2019 with the aim to help community banks collaborate around key issues commonly faced in the industry. The primary focus was to create a platform to introduce banks to both identify and manage the regulatory and compliance issues they face. As a result, a partnership was built with several legal firms to provide leadership, direction and information. Furthermore, the second objective was to introduce the banks to industry opportunities. Community Banks face similar challenges, as some of the larger banks regarding vendor management, product and operations support and working with their core provider.  However, introducing vendors, in a shared service model, helps community banks to manage expenses and still provide value to customers and shareholders.

What is the target focus of the banks that participate in the Community Bank Roundtable?

 The initial target was focused on the larger asset size community banks; however there has been momentum among some of the mid and small tiered banks. We continue to uncover opportunities across the community bank sector. We work with banks as part of the Roundtable collectively or individually, depending on the project or opportunity.

 What has been some of the early successes of the Community Bank Roundtable?

We introduced a client that was seeking a community bank to manage their deposits... Through our network we located an opportunity resulting in over $52 million of new deposits. Furthermore, we have partnered banks with FinTech companies looking for new products and opportunities.

 What is the marketing strategy for the Community Bank Roundtable?

 The Walker Group maintains strong contacts within the banking sector at all tiers. Some of these relationships have become part of the Community Bank Roundtable while other banks have participated through The Walker Group Community Bank Roundtable Marketing Initiative.

 What are some of the specific topics discussed with the Roundtable?

 Topics include KYC/AML issues, compliance and legal concerns, FinTech partnerships and IT development opportunities. We continue to focus on issues that community banks are dealing with and need help to navigate through. Other issues are dealt with on a one on one basis, when appropriate.

 What is the future focus of the Roundtable?

 The goal is move beyond the ten banks currently part of the Roundtable. Focus moving forward remains to help community banks in a post COVID-10 environment to expand the Roundtable with another ten to twenty banks. We are currently on target to accomplish this.

 The Walker Group provides business development and advisory services to banks and FinTech companies. Our varied market segments enables us to identify synergies and opportunities to stimulate growth as we partner with our clients to build their business. We have helped organizations to navigate through the key business challenges, increase revenues, gain new customers and partners. For more information contact Wayne Brown at [email protected]