The Threat That Could End Community Banking – And What to Do About It

Small and midsized banks are at tremendous risk. Not just at risk of running out of customers, and therefore money; not just at risk of being bought out by a larger bank. CBFIs are also at risk of losing their core business to the companies innovating in the paytech and lendtech spaces. Small business lending is ground zero for this imminent disaster. On the surface, things are going well for community and regional banks and credit unions. Though only in charge of a small percentage of total assets, they’re disproportionately dominating small business lending. In 2018, community-based financial institutions made 52% of all small business loans, even though they controlled only 16% of banking assets.