Three Ways to Protect Community Banking’s Edge Before It Quietly Erodes
By Jessica Kendall, Contributor at The Financial Brand
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After spending more than two decades inside some of the country’s largest financial institutions, including leadership roles at major banks and president of the Consumer Bankers Association, Ryan Bailey took a different path — moving from large institutions to leading a $7 billion community bank. As CEO of Cambridge Savings Bank, Bailey has focused on translating large-bank capabilities into a smaller institution without losing the personal relationships that community banking does best.
In a recent Banking Transformed podcast episode, Bailey shares that his approach centers on combining high-touch service with high-tech delivery. That means removing friction from digital banking, using AI to improve customer experiences, partnering aggressively with fintech providers, and building a culture that moves faster than larger competitors.
Key takeaway: Bailey believes community banks can compete effectively, but only if they modernize intentionally while preserving the trust and personal connection that distinguish local institutions from national players.
Need to Know:
- Customer experience should drive technology decisions. Digital improvements matter most when they reduce friction and solve real customer pain points.
- Speed can be a competitive advantage. Smaller institutions can move faster than large banks when leadership teams align around priorities.
- AI works best as an enhancement tool. Bailey sees immediate value in helping employees serve customers faster and more effectively.
- Fintech partnerships level the playing field. Community banks no longer need massive internal teams to deliver modern experiences.
- Personal relationships remain a differentiator. Data matters, but moments of human support still shape long-term loyalty.
1. Pair High Touch with High Tech
Bailey arrived at Cambridge Savings Bank with a perspective shaped by years inside some of banking’s largest organizations. Those institutions excel at using data to understand customers, personalize experiences, and anticipate needs. Community banks, meanwhile, often hold an advantage in personal relationships and trust.
The challenge, in Bailey’s view, is to combine both strengths.
At Cambridge Savings Bank, one of his earliest priorities involved improving the institution’s digital experience. Opening an account required too many steps, funding accounts created unnecessary friction, and digital interactions fell short of the expectations customers increasingly brought from companies outside banking.
Bailey argues that community institutions increasingly compete against digital experiences shaped by retailers and technology companies. If consumers can complete purchases in a few clicks elsewhere, cumbersome onboarding processes create frustration that feels increasingly outdated.
At Cambridge Savings Bank, that meant streamlining digital account opening and investing heavily in front-end experiences customers directly encounter. Bailey often frames the goal as delivering ‘high touch through high technology” — preserving human relationships while making banking easier and faster.
The bank’s national digital platform, Ivy Bank, also became an important learning environment. Rather than treating digital and traditional banking as competing priorities, Bailey sees Ivy as a testing ground for ideas that can eventually improve the broader organization.
Key takeaway: New capabilities can be introduced, refined, and expanded without disrupting legacy customer relationships. For institutions navigating modernization, that experimentation model may prove increasingly valuable.
2. Move Faster Than Big Banks
Community institutions often assume their biggest disadvantage is scale. Bailey sees the equation differently.
While large institutions possess enormous budgets, specialized teams, and deep technical resources, smaller banks frequently underestimate their ability to move faster.
At Cambridge Savings Bank, leadership teams work closely together and can often make decisions in days rather than months. Executives sit near one another, customer feedback travels quickly, and organizational alignment happens with fewer layers of approval.
That speed becomes especially important as technology changes accelerate.
Bailey believes many institutions understand what needs to happen but struggle to execute. The barrier often comes down to prioritization and culture rather than awareness. Leaders may agree customer experience matters while failing to devote the necessary attention to digital onboarding, analytics or modernization efforts.
That said, resource constraints remain real. Bailey openly acknowledges that a $7 billion institution cannot launch endless initiatives simultaneously or create large internal development teams. That limitation makes prioritization essential.
Key insight: Instead of trying to tackle everything at once, Bailey encourages banks to focus on the customer problems creating the greatest friction. His advice is to identify the top five issues affecting customers and fix them.
Equally important is building internal alignment around change. Bailey describes culture as one of the defining variables separating institutions that modernize successfully from those that struggle.
Employees rarely resist technology simply because it is new. Resistance often softens when people understand how tools improve outcomes and reduce repetitive work.
At Cambridge Savings Bank, for example, underwriting processes for small business loans historically required extensive manual review. Technology investments helped simplify those workflows, allowing teams to work more efficiently while maintaining decision quality.
For leadership teams trying to accelerate execution, Bailey emphasizes explaining why change matters rather than simply announcing new priorities.
3. Use Technology to Strengthen Relationships
Artificial intelligence represents one of the clearest examples of Bailey’s philosophy.
Many large institutions approach AI primarily through an efficiency lens, asking how technology can reduce costs or eliminate labor. Bailey sees a different opportunity: improving customer experiences.
At Cambridge Savings Bank, AI tools already assist customer service representatives by helping them locate answers faster. Rather than forcing agents to navigate dozens of systems, AI surfaces relevant information quickly so customers receive answers with less delay.
Instead of removing humans from banking interactions, the bank focuses on helping the humans serve customers more effectively. In fact, Bailey remains skeptical of pushing customers into frustrating automated loops or forcing them through endless phone menus. Even within digital-first experiences like Ivy Bank, live support remains central.
His reasoning reflects a broader belief about where community banks still hold an advantage.
Technology can create efficiency, but emotionally significant moments still require people. Bailey shared an example involving a customer nearing the end of life who needed urgent notary assistance after another institution failed to help. A Cambridge banker stepped in before a holiday to ensure the customer’s needs were met.
Stories like that reinforce an important reality for retail banking executives: technology improves service, but relationships build trust.
Bottom line: Bailey believes community banks still possess a meaningful opportunity to compete — but success depends on mindset. Institutions willing to modernize, experiment, and invest in customer-centered experiences can outperform expectations. Those relying solely on historical relationships or branch traffic may find the environment far less forgiving.
For Bailey, the goal is ambitious but clear: build a bank that feels both modern and deeply human. A 200-year-old institution can still feel fresh, provided it evolves with the people it serves.
