Community banks are putting technology to work for their customers and have been for decades, American Bankers Association Chairman Jeff Szyperski wrote in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal published today. “The community bank I lead was early to offer mobile banking,” he said. “We provide an array of sophisticated cash-flow finance and merchant-processing tools for our own business customers as well as thousands more across the country.”
Szyperski—the chairman, president and CEO of Chesapeake Bank in Kilmarnock, Va.—was responding to a page-one Journal article from March 2 that used a single example of a struggling community bank to imply that smaller banks can’t offer the technology customers want. This isn’t supported by the balance of evidence, he explained.
“Because community bankers don’t have the resources of our larger peers, we are forced to innovate,” he said. “In addition to advocating for common-sense banking rules, ABA is committed to ensuring that banks of all sizes have the technology tools and resources they need to serve their customers and communities today and in the future.”
