Mastercard has forged a new partnership with the Independent Community Bankers of America’s payments subsidiary in an effort to sell its services to some of that entity’s 1,400 financial institution members, the card network said this week.

Mastercard, the second-largest U.S. card network behind Visa, is pitching upgraded payments technology services to the banks, which in turn would allow the banks to offer their customers more modern contactless card, digital wallet and fraud prevention services.

ICBA Payments is a for-profit subsidiary of the ICBA non-profit trade association parent.

“By partnering with Mastercard, we’re equipping our member banks with innovative, secure, and cost-effective solutions that empower them to support and grow the neighborhoods they serve,” ICBA Payments CEO Jacob Eisen said in a March 17 Mastercard press release regarding the new alliance.

Mastercard is making its services available to all of ICBA Payments members, though the transition to its services will start with "several hundred" of the banks, a spokesperson for the card network said. The spokesperson declined to say how many community banks the card network currently works with.

Major U.S. financial institutions, such as JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, dominate the banking industry, but there are thousands of smaller banks across the U.S., totaling about 9,000 institutions overall.

Increasingly, smaller banks have struggled to keep up with the fast-paced evolution of bank and payments technologies, as their larger rivals advance by spending heavily on new digital and real-time systems. Some smaller banks have struck partnerships with fintechs to try to stay competitive with their peers.

Community banks are defined by the Federal Reserve as those with less than $10 billion in assets, and regional banks as those with $10 billion to $100 billion, according to the Fed’s website.

Under the new services, ICBA Payments’ banks will have access to “contactless plastics, tokenization to digital wallets, and industry standard 8-digit BINs and business BIN optimization,” according to the release.

ICBA Payments has had an existing relationship with Mastercard, as well as Visa, for credit and debit card issuance, a spokesperson for the association said. The new tie to Mastercard is an expansion of that prior relationship, the spokesperson said.

ICBA Payments members jointly have about 10 million credit and debit cards outstanding, making the banks, collectively, the 10th-largest issuer of debit cards and 29th-largest issuer of credit cards in the U.S., according to the release.

As part of the partnership with Purchase, New York-based Mastercard, ICBA Payments will shift its “sponsored card programs to Mastercard” as the card network handles all the communication and marketing for members, the release said.