Community banking is important but cannot replace how modern banks work. Loan volumes are usually small as you cannot give a loan of several million dollars jus

Community banking is important but cannot replace how modern banks work. Loan volumes are usually small as you cannot give a loan of several million dollars just because you think the other person is trustworthy. Also, this system works for people who stay in their hometown but can make it hard for newcomers to get credit. If you're new in town and your neighbours don't like you it doesn't mean you should be denied credit. FICO scores are far from perfect but it's the best system banks could come up with so far. All large banks are in the business to make money. If someone comes with better risk measures that can increase lending and keep risk low, they'd happily adapt it. The big problem with replacing FICO is that new methods based on machine learning often exhibit some form of racial bias which can cause huge fines by the CFPB. So banks try to avoid any new techniques until they can be certain that the system doesn't bias towards certain groups.