Celebrating Community Banking By the time this edition of The Show-Me Banker magazine hits your desk, we will be celebrating Community Banking Month. It’s an opportunity to share the true importance of the community banking system with our communities, our customers and ourselves. As we share our stories of community banking with our communities, the opportunity to include financial education and literacy as part of the message is front and center. What better way to demonstrate the value we bring to the communities we serve than to give them the knowledge to control their financial world? Community banks are the vital link between Main Street, local economies and the financial system. Because we are on the ground, living and working in our communities — be it urban, suburban or rural — we understand the challenges and opportunities that exist as they are the same challenges and opportunities we face. We are an important part of the economic engine in the communities we serve, providing personalized services and financial products tailored to our customers’ needs. Besides the products and services community banks provide, we also give personally of ourselves through hours of community service in more ways than I can mention: serving on boards of all shapes and sizes, providing our financial knowledge, expertise and, yes, our money — both the banks and our personal money that supports vital and deserving community projects. It takes a community bank to support a village that not only survives but thrives. Because if the village doesn’t survive, how will we? Vital to that survival is financial education and literacy. In a world that is constantly changing with a wide variety of diverse financial products, volatile markets and evolving regulatory environmental concerns, financial knowledge is a must to succeed. The knowledge necessary to compete in the world today doesn’t end after high school, trade school, college, etc. Learning is ongoing and knowledge must be as diverse as the ever-changing financial world we live in. Something as simple as fraud that we all deal with, unfortunately sometimes daily, is constantly changing. The knowledge that our communities and customers need regarding PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Doug Fish MIBA President BTC Bank, Bethany, MO fraud has become a full-time job on our part. We must constantly and continually educate ourselves and our customers about the most recent scams. Financial education for our communities and customers is an avenue we can successfully navigate. Whether through the schools, 4-H clubs, community outreach programs or our own social media rails, it’s all part of helping to build strong customers and solid communities. I’ve only scratched the surface of the incredible work we do as community banks! I encourage each of you to celebrate and recognize your community bank and its positive influence on the community it serves. 4 | The Show-Me Banker Magazine
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTg3NDExNQ==