August 17, 2026

Like many of my peers, I would classify myself as an accidental banker. Shortly after high school, I joined the U.S. Army, where I served as a Russian translator for a military intelligence unit in Fairbanks, Alaska. Upon receiving an honorable discharge, I earned a journalism degree at the University of Oregon and subsequently stumbled upon an opportunity to work as a mortgage banker. This turned into a 28-year career with U.S. Bank, where I’ve had the privilege of leading retail, business and commercial banking teams across the Western U.S.

Rocky Mountain Farmers Union (RMFU) has long served as a voice for family farmers and ranchers across Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Despite the word “union” in its name, RMFU is not a labor union; it is a grassroots organization working to strengthen rural communities through education, legislation and cooperation. Its programs support producers at many stages of life and business, from youth leadership and agricultural education to resources for new, beginning and multigenerational farmers.

B:Side Capital and B:Side Fund, a non-profit small business lender and Certified Development Financial Institution (CDFI), announced the launch of its AI-powered financial intelligence platform designed exclusively for small business owners. The platform connects directly to users’ bank accounts to deliver real-time visibility into cash flow, automated anomaly detection and forward-looking forecasts — all in a single, unified dashboard.

The National Adult Protective Services Association defines elder financial exploitation (EFE) as the “illegal or improper use of an older person’s or vulnerable adult’s funds, property or assets.”1 EFE is one type of elder abuse, which includes physical, sexual, emotional or psychological, and financial abuse or exploitation, neglect, abandonment and/or self-neglect.

Overdraft has become one of the most closely watched areas of financial services. Regulatory scrutiny, consumer expectations, fee sensitivity and reputational risk have all intensified the conversation.

Community banks, which make up at least 90% of all banks nationwide, are the backbone of American small businesses.1 An ICBA report found that roughly 60% of small business loans and over 80% of agricultural loans come from community banks.2 But community banks face steep challenges, including net interest margin compression, compliance and cybersecurity burdens, and new, often digital-only, competitors. In fact, 97% of respondents to IntraFi’s Q1 2026 survey of bank executives say they expect deposit competition to remain at current levels or increase over the next year.

A growing number of financial institutions are exploring the integration of AI into their workflows with uneven outcomes. A widely cited 2025 MIT study found that roughly 95% of corporate AI pilots fail to deliver a measurable financial return.1 For boards and executives who have watched budgets flow into chatbots and copilots with little to show for it, the figure invites an uncomfortable question: Is AI a dud?

For years, federal solar tax incentives were largely the domain of multinational banks and Fortune 500 corporations. Utility-scale projects, measured in hundreds of megawatts, required balance sheets and tax appetites that placed them beyond the reach of most community institutions. That paradigm is changing. Today, distributed residential solar — aggregated across thousands of homes and financed through standardized structures — has opened the door for community banks to participate in investment tax credits (ITCs) and accelerated depreciation in a way that is scalable, repeatable and well aligned with community banking models.