Some folks said technology would be the death of community banks, Deaver said. I previously thought it would be tough for typical Mississippi community banks, he said. As it turns out, interestingly enough, smaller institutions can quite often move more rapidly into areas that deal with technology than larger banks. Larger banks are so spread out and are usually intertwined with a system of combined institutions. By the time they work through the technical issues of that, it s slower for them to move to put in new technology-based products.
Small banks can move so quickly.
The financial modernization bill that passed last year facilitated the removal of barriers between banks and insurance, Deaver said. Now, we re all in the same family. We pride ourselves on being regulated facilities, but find ourselves competing with non-regulated institutions, or institutions regulated much differently, such as credit unions. Now that has become a battle cry among the banking industry. Last year, mergers and acquisitions slowed down primarily because of the focus on Y2K, Deaver said.