Correspondent Blog

Most banks serve a geographical area defined mainly by a political outline, such as a set of counties. Other banks choose less-defined regions, such as the “Tri-city Area” or “Northern Virginia.” While these defined service areas may be fine for marketing purposes, when it comes to operating efficiency, banks may want to think along other…

The FOMC’s recent hawkish pivot and indications of multiple rate hikes in 2022 have created market volatility and an increase in longer-term interest rates. In a period of rapid change (or high volatility), we see about 50% of banks fall into a common trap of mispricing their commercial credits.  This loan pricing mistake does not…

Banks investing in tech funds were all the rage in 2021, with hundreds of banks getting involved and investing for their first time. The timing was good for almost all these banks as some of these funds produced triple-digit returns. These technology funds are pitched as a great way to earn an above-average return while…

The FOMC lowered the Federal Funds target range to 0.00%-to-0.25% in March of 2020, and it has remained there since.  But now, the market is convinced that the FOMC will raise rates in 2022 through 2024 to better align short-term interest rates with expected market conditions.  This pivot by the FOMC has bankers, and customers,…

While the branch still has its place in banking, it has radically changed since the pandemic. Branch profitability is now harder than ever to achieve. Driven by changing traffic patterns (data HERE), we talked about how these changes permanently altered branch strategy HERE and gave readers five new tactics HERE. In the past, we also…

US prudential regulators are clear that after 2021 banks may no longer use USD LIBOR as an index.  The remaining USD LIBOR cash and derivative instruments will continue until June 30, 2023, at which point all USD LIBOR settings are expected to be discontinued, and most legacy LIBOR contracts will be converted to a Fallback…

Most bankers have a hard enough time lending on real estate, let alone real estate that is not physically there in the “metaverse.” However, before you decide that you NEVER would lend on a virtual property,  consider that the world is changing. Thinking about how you would lend on virtual real estate is an interesting…

Historically bankers used the Treasury, FHLB, or swap yield curve to discern the future path of interest rates. At the time of this writing, the three-month Treasury-Bill is yielding four basis points, the two-year note is 0.59%, and the 10-year note is yielding 1.33%. Historically, such a yield curve prognosticated minimal interest rate changes over…

Community banks have historically generated less non-interest or fee income than larger lenders.  One reason for this is the lack of analytics on how fee income translates to revenue and profitability.  While there are many ways that community banks can increase fee income, one specific source of non-interest income should be particularly appealing to community…

We are big fans of data, but recognize that analysis, and presentation of analysis, can lead you astray. Here are 15 (approximately) of our favorite quotes and maxims that we try to keep in mind every day in order to be more effective at banking. Hopefully, this will remind you of old quotes while introducing…

In Part 1 (HERE), we gave bankers an overview of decentralized finance and the increasing use of smart contracts in banking. Our tortured analogy was based on how children are similar to using smart contracts as they are a store of value and a message all in one bundle of joy that can move independently…

The capital structure of a business refers to the mix of debt and equity used to finance the company’s assets and operations. The simplest forms of financing for a business are equity and debt, although there are many hybrids. Equity represents the most expensive form of financing.  Because debt is legally first to be paid,…