Our business continually evolves and it’s your ideas that make us better. Putting your opinions to work shapes the products, the service, the training, and the experience of Kasasa for all of our financial institutions.

So how do we get this valuable, actionable feedback from those who matter most?

In early October, we launched our new online survey forum, the Kasasa Expert Exchange, and now we’re excited to share some of our insights. Here’s what we learned from the 78 respondents to our first survey.

Industry leaders at community financial institutions are conservative in their expectations for rising rates.

In October, you and your peers mirrored the news everyone is hearing, that in the next year, market interest rates will rise. In fact, 64% of respondents to our survey indicated that they expected rates to “somewhat increase” in the next year, while 28% answered that they expect rates to remain the same.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of market interest rates is necessary to your business, but is there more you ought to be doing now in order to prepare for that financial landscape? Our white paper “Thriving In A Rising Rate Environment” suggests that yes, you should be pursuing sources of non-interest income more aggressively in order to capitalize on forecasted changes in market rates.

New products are viewed as important non-interest income generators, yet that may not be reflected in your institution’s priorities.

When asked “How important is it to your institution to begin providing new products that generate non-interest income?” virtually all respondents (96%) said this was somewhat or extremely important. Why, then, did only 68% of respondents indicate that new products to capture non-interest income are part of their 2016 strategic plan?

Community financial institutions predict need for more deposits to complement loan demand.

We asked two questions: “What do you expect will happen to your institution’s loan demand in the next year?” and similarly “What do you expect to happen to your need for deposits?” A majority of respondents expect both to rise: 75% expect need for deposits to increase, and 72% expect loan demand to increase as well.

Consumers are moving swiftly to lock in low rates, seeing it as the opportune time to buy a home or vehicle before rates go up. As a result of your predictions, you logically expect your need for deposits to increase as well.

Your feedback through these brief surveys will inform our strategy to best serve your needs.

If you’d like to participate in this forum, you can join the panel here. If this is your first time to register, you’ll have an opportunity to participate the second week of December, when we launch a survey that dives into analytics, metrics, and real-time results.