Correspondent Blog

You oversee pricing your checking accounts and you are trying to decide between $10.00 per month, $9.99, or $9.95. Which one do you choose? In a prior article where we tested “charm” account pricing, where we showed that conversion rates were almost twice as high when we used a $1.99 price point for a product…

In Q2/24 the average return of asset (ROA) for community banks (under $10B in assets) was 1.08%.  But within the community banking sector, performance varied among banks significantly and a large swath of banks need to improve ROA.  While the average ROA was 1.08%, approximately 5.7% of community banks reported negative ROA.  Another 16.2% of…

Intelligent agents are poised to change the face of bank operations. At the same time, banks are striving to figure out how to employ generative AI (gen AI) in their operations; part of the answer lies in the intelligent agent. Like how the Internet and smartphones changed banking, these autonomous reasoning models will be built…

How does a commercial loan’s maturity and amortization impact credit? Many credit officers would prefer to set shorter maturities for loan repayment terms.  The logic is that it is better for the bank to control the credit with a hard stop and revisit credit appetite at shorter intervals.  If credit conditions are appropriate, the bank…

Banking is woefully inefficient. There is a myriad of manual processes that take place everyday in banking driving up unit economics and causing the average bank to operate with a 77+% efficiency ratio. To be competitive in the future, banks need to be operating at an efficiency ratio of below 40%. Part of the issue…

In Q2/24 the average return on assets (ROA) for community banks (under $10B in assets) was 1.08%, with an average ROE of 10.44%.  But within the community banking sector, performance varied among banks significantly.  We analyze the drivers of ROA for the community bank segment last quarter and consider what financial variables explain bank performance….

As a general statement, banks offer too many options for certificates of deposits (CDs). Consider that the average bank offers 12 different maturities, some “specials,” plus several different tiers of pricing within each maturity. We have seen banks with as many as 42 different CD options which is inefficient for every party. The problem is…

In Q2/24, the average return on equity (ROE) for the entire banking industry increased to 11.67% (from 11.11% in the previous quarter).  However, for community banks (under $10B in assets), the ROE declined to 10.44% (from 10.57% in the previous quarter).  When we analyze the causes of the decline in ROE for community banks we…

Is Copilot for Microsoft 365 (M365) worth it for banks? Microsoft’s integration of ChatGPT into its suite of apps has created a set of productivity tools that some bankers will instantly use. However, Copilot does come with a set of risks, one of which is that some bankers will only reluctantly use the product. This…

Most community bankers we talk believe they will get a boost to bank performance with declining short-term rates.  The thinking is that a lower Fed Funds rate will mitigate credit risk, spur loan demand and potentially soften competition for deposits, leading to wider NIM and more profitability.  Unfortunately, the empirical evidence shows otherwise.  While the…

Something might be getting lost in the tribal knowledge of managing time deposits. Certificate of deposit (CD) “specials” and the odd-month CD offering are good examples. As the legacy knowledge of deposit gathering is passed down from generation to generation of banker, some of the finer points of liability structuring are getting diluted with some…

It is rare that banking lends itself to a logic test, but we have been trying this loan risk and return riddle on hundreds of bankers across the country for years, and only a few bankers choose the correct answer.  The riddle goes like this: You are presented with two loans. Loan A is priced…