Community Bankers Are Talking About Dodd-Frank, Mobile And Payments, Too

LAS VEGAS -- It's hard to get a good picture of the scope of a large financial services technology provider without seeing all it does on display in a large convention center.

That is to say, I knew Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv was big, but had no means with which to quantify that assumption until seeing all of its product lines on display in a massive Mandalay Bay Convention Center Sunday evening. Over the next couple days, I'm on location in Las Vegas covering Fiserv's Focus 2011 Spring client conference, and have a full schedule meeting with community bank and Fiserv executives throughout.

Topics of discussion so far, after Sunday meetings with a community bank VP from Wisconsin, a President/CFO from Iowa and an EVP/CIO from the Bay Area have ranged from debit rewards and regulation to remote deposit capture, mobile, payments, and the evolution of branch banking. While I get the sense that it's just the tip of the iceberg, I also get the feeling that all banks -- regardless of size -- are in the midst of adapting their services to serve a more mobile- and online-centric population, while trying to maintain revenue despite new regulation the pending loss of interchange fee income.

That community banks share many of the same concerns of the large and regional institutions, particularly when it comes to Dodd-Frank, shows how profound an affect the new regulation will have on the industry. That smaller banks are trying just as hard to provide the best in mobile banking and payments as the big banks shows that, while no one can definitively say that technology represents the future of banking, that everyone understands how important it might be.

More to come.