Mastercard and ICBA Team to Strengthen Community Bank Card Programs

Group 1 - Mastercard has partnered with ICBA Payments to modernize card programs for community banks and enhance payment services [1] - The collaboration aims to provide innovative, secure, and cost-effective solutions to empower member banks and strengthen local economies [2] - ICBA will upgrade its card programs to include contactless plastics, tokenization for digital wallets, and optimized BINs [3] Group 2 - The partnership aligns with the trend of small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) increasingly choosing community banks and credit unions over larger national banks [4] - Research indicates that 23% of SMBs prefer local banks, with rural SMBs showing a higher preference at 49% [5] - Despite the preference for local institutions, community banks and credit unions are perceived to have inferior digital offerings compared to national banks [6][7]