Correspondent Blog

Bankers love easy. Who doesn’t want an easy way to have a more profitable bank? We also love to keep things simple. It is a common refrain. Compounding the problem is that in banking, we often think that “simple” and “easy” as synonymous. In this article, we will touch on innovation, technology and banking strategy…

In our previous article (here), we made the argument that the next administration’s agenda is highly inflationary, will likely lead to higher interest rates and more volatility.  We estimate a high probability that after this current interest rate cutting cycle, which may end sometime in 2025, that higher inflation will result in the Federal Reserve…

With almost 30% of banks utilizing some portion of instant payments, the industry is starting to gather more data on how instant payments impact balances, customer acquisition, and account usage. Instant payments have the potential to change the payment landscape for banks. In this article, we look at seven ways instant payments impact deposit performance…

The Trump administration’s impact on the US economy has been thoroughly analyzed and will continue to be debated (and closely watched) for its entire four-year term.  Economic scenarios may unfold in a myriad of unexpected ways.  However, one result of the administrations stated policies will be highly likely – we estimate at least a 90%…

The spectacle that is Money 20/20 (Money 2020 or M2020) went down last week, and it did not disappoint. Money 2020 is likely the conference with the lowest conference-attendee-to-session-attendee ratio in the industry. While the sessions were interesting,  the heart of the conference is all about sales, partnerships, and deal-making. In this respect, 2024 was…

Over the last few years we have published various articles on the pros and cons of commercial loan prepayment provisions, how those prepay provisions impact marketing and sales, loan prepayment speeds, and the relationship between prepayment provisions and customer return on equity (ROE) (some of the recent articles are here, here, and here).  We are…

A survey from the CFA Institute caught our attention on why wealth management clients leave. 47% of the respondents said they left because of the poor portfolio performance. That makes sense. But, do you know what the second highest reason for leaving your wealth manager was? Communication. 43% of the respondents left because of the…

In our previous article (here) we analyzed the data on community bank M&A and performance, and we concluded that there is no relationship between community bank size and profitability, as measured by return on equity (ROE).  While superficially it makes sense that bigger is better, size itself does not lead to better bank performance.  Combining…

We pine for the days when banking was boring. It is not now. Right on target, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released the final version (HERE) of the much-anticipated Section 1033 rule on consumer financial data rights this week. This rule ushers in a significant change, the ramifications of which need to be considered…

There are many experts who claim that to achieve profitability, community banks (banks under $10B in assets) must gain scale by acquiring assets.  On the surface that seems reasonable but does scale in banking result in better performance for community banks?  The answer to that question can be analyzed both empirically and anecdotally, and we…

While there are many overlooked products in banking, the debit card is perhaps the greatest. The product generates significant fees and helps drive deposit balances, yet debit cards rarely get a mention in strategy, marketing, or customer profitability circles. The debit card is one of the greatest workhorses of banking and, unfortunately, is forgotten about…

In a previous article, we discussed how a loan’s maturity and amortization impacts credit risk and profitability from the bank’s perspective (HERE). In that article, we pointed out that the average commercial loan term at community banks has been decreasing and is now between 3.5 and 4.5 years.  Much of the explanation for the decrease…