November 2024

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October 5 Montana State Bobcats vs. Northern Colorado Bears Score: Bobcats 55 / Bears 17 UBB Game Board Winners: Tracey GreenFirst Security Bank of Roundup Gary WagnerAscent Bank Lynzie HavenerPeoples Bank of Deer Lodge Tim SchreiberFarmers State Bank

September 14 Montana Grizzlies vs. Morehead State Eagles Score: Grizzlies 59  /  Eagles 2 Cooler Winner  (Donated by Bell Bank):  Mike Moore

2025 Jan. 7-9 MIB/MBA Bankers Day at the CapitalGreat Northern Hotel Helena, MT Jan. 30 Membership Renewals Due March 14-17 ICBA Live Nashville, TN May 12-15 2025 ICBA Capital SummitWashington, D.C. July 16-18 2025 MIB Convention and Trade ShowBig Sky ResortBig Sky, MT

Financial institution supervisory agencies view a formal process for managing complaints from bank customers as an important element in an effective compliance management system (CMS). In fact, the latest issue of the Consumer Compliance Outlook publication from the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) includes three articles on this subject.

Collection Professionals Inc. (CPI) is one of the largest collection agencies in the Rocky Mountain region. With corporate headquarters in Sandy, Utah, CPI has three additional offices in Wyoming, one in Montana and three in Colorado. Our offices utilize the same software and technology. This gives CPI greater flexibility and compatibility, allowing our offices to assist one another with collection assignments seamlessly when required. All of our account executives are trained and educated in the Fair Debt Credit Practice Act (FDCPA) rules and regulations, and they adhere to the same collection process throughout the company to ensure continuity, effectiveness and professionalism.

MIB hosted its third annual Women in Banking Conference on Oct. 2-3 in Bozeman. MIB opened the event with a paint-and-sip reception featuring Bozeman artist, LeAnne Ramey. On Thursday, the event hosted an excellent lineup of speakers, which included Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobson, ICBA Senior Vice President of Congressional Relations Susan Sullivan, ICBA Senior Vice President of Member Relations Brandy Smallbrock, an extraordinary guest who joined by Zoom — ICBA President/CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey, and other fantastic speakers. The event closed with an eye-opening presentation by the Montana Attorney General’s office on human trafficking.

As we embark on the fourth quarter of 2024, there are a lot of wild cards in the community banking deck that could be dealt in the very near future: national elections, expiring tax cuts, commercial real estate and geopolitics, just to name a few. Let’s quickly recap just the previous nine months of 2024:

We have seen check fraud ramp up over the past two years. Fraudsters have turned their attention to check rails, reintroducing older forms of attack. And check imaging drove the shift.

Cybersecurity and fraud mitigation remain significant priorities for community banks as attacks get more creative and targeted. While today’s technologies assist with anomaly detection, flagging rogue transactions and spotting those that need greater scrutiny, at the end of the day, one of the main methods of mitigating this risk is to Know Your Customer (KYC).