Correspondent Blog

Our data and analysis strongly suggest that banks that can measure instrument and relationship level performance for ROA and ROE can improve simply by reallocating capital and resources to more profitable relationships and improve performance by strategic cross-selling. We measured how commercial loan hedging, where interest rate risk is removed, credit margin is properly determined…

Account opening is one of banking’s most important moments: it’s where a new relationship begins, where trust is earned (or lost), and where the bank sets the foundation for profitability and risk management. In this article, we look at how generative AI is being employed within teams of agents that is serving to make the…

Community banks have long debated whether profitability is driven by pricing discipline, balance sheet optimization, or credit selection. While each of these factors matters, analysis of client-level profitability across thousands of commercial relationships tells a more decisive story: bank profitability is not built through isolated transactions; it is built through relationships largely characterized by multiple…

If you are a bank CEO, you already track performance and risk for regulators, the board, and shareholders. There is another audience you cannot ignore: potential acquirers. Banks that get acquired often share common traits. Some of these traits are quantitative and some are qualitative. The good news is that we can help you identify…

In our previous article (HERE) we discussed differences between how various banks price commercial loans.  When it comes to setting commercial loan rates, we contrasted “ideal” and real-world pricing strategies employed by banks. We highlighted the objectives of loan pricing and summarized seven tools that community banks can use to price commercial loan relationships. In…

In 1963, American Express rolled out an initiative of embossing “Member Since xxxx” on its credit cards and marketing material to signify customer loyalty, relationship longevity, and prestige of brand. Several other banks, including Wells Fargo, have followed suit with similar success. A member tenure program signals recognition, belonging, and continuity. In this article, we…

In a perfect world, when it comes to pricing commercial loans, banks would price customer relationships based on risk-adjusted return on capital (RAROC) and incorporate shareholder value-added (SVA). Banks would then measure profitability at the customer, product, branch, region, or manager level so that management may properly allocate resources to drive institutional profitability. Banks would…

Like a carpenter with a hammer where everything looks like a nail, to a deposit gather, all too often the world looks like a rate. Commonly lost is a discussion around marketing expense. In this article, we explore a deposit marketing framework that describes how bankers might want to think of the trade off between…

When it comes to winning loans for commercial relationships, community bankers need to know who they are competing against. Understanding your competition allows you to better innovate your products, define your delivery channels, highlight your differentiation, and establish pricing methods (among other business strategies).  Bank managers often believe that they can differentiate their service to…

Many bankers use gen AI as a search engine. Others use it to help them write or come up with ideas. Still others are more sophisticated and have started to incorporate multiple AI models into the enterprise to leverage AI across the bank. All this helps, but one execution that we found the most helpful…

In our previous article (HERE), we explained that fee income (not net interest margin, asset size, or nine other variables) has the highest correlation to community bank performance as measured by both return on assets and equity. Growing fee income is one of the most critical investments you can make. Why? We believe that this…

Many banks either fail to innovate or innovate to their detriment. Artificial intelligence and tokenization are two current examples where either banks are ignoring or in an attempt to innovate have destroyed the value of the product by copying old processes, putting enough guardrails on to limit its use or being so slow to roll…