Correspondent Blog

Covid-19 has changed many aspects of banking from branch operations to credit underwriting and remote supervision of employees. Many community bank managers are physically distanced from their teams because of the pandemic. This distancing creates new challenges on how to supervise, motivate, communicate with, coach, train, and review bankers. We face this same challenge and…

In the online world, customer reviews and ratings are ubiquitous. Consumers have come to expect them, yet few banks use them. Ironically, sites that rate banks, such as NerdWallet, BankRate, and others, maintain detailed reviews on banks with great success as well as places like Yelp. If your bank is not offering rates, chances are…

While several commercial real estate (CRE) sectors are showing signs of stress, the industrial sector is one of the few bank credit lines that are improving. Companies gained confidence at the end of the second quarter and started to lease more space. As such, weekly leasing activity jumped back to pre-Covid-19 levels after hitting a…

Chances are you were already reducing the number of your branches. Between the interest rate environment over the past several years, the increase in digital spend, and the quest for greater operating leverage, banks can no longer afford large branch structures and still return their cost of capital. Recent studies now suggest a lower probability…

HMBradley is a fintech that has partnered with Hatch Bank, a subsidiary of Firstrust Bank ($3.7B, PA), to offer two innovations that we have talked about in the past, but few banks have executed. This fintech has tiered their rates based on the percentage saved and offers only a single operating account instead of checking,…

In the next twelve months, the transition from LIBOR to alternative Risk-free Rates (SOFR in the US) will take an important course. Banks with products tied to LIBOR need to understand the implications of ISDA Fallback Protocol and how to manage possible risks with this critical industry transition. Shortly, ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association)…

In the last quarter, the money market world has changed, which has important implications for banks. Not only is it less competition, but the influence that money market funds have on banks is substantial, and so it means less pressure on rates. Less pricing influence means less deposit price sensitivity, which not only means rates…

One of the most underappreciated commercial real estate trends in banking is the remarkable stability of multifamily rents during this pandemic. As of last week, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), 77.4% of renters in an 11.4 million sample size of professionally managed apartment complexes were making their rent payment which compares to…

Underappreciated in the banking industry is the growing role of identity and access in banking. As banks build their digital strategies, we need to stop and think about how we know our customers (identity) and how we know that the verified customer we believe is trying to access a banking channel is really the customer…

Covid-19 and the responses to the pandemic are exerting various pressures on community banks.  How a community bank underwrites and books commercial credit through the end of 2020 will have a significant impact on the bank’s profits and credit quality through the entire next business cycle. In this article, we focus on four key steps…

Recent survey data from borrowers that took a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan was surprising as more borrowers than we first expected will be using the EZ Form and fewer borrowers than expected will be using the 24-week covered period. In this article, we breakdown some of this data and then discuss how it might…

With a low and flat yield curve, generating profits through investments has become more challenging.  There are some very poignant lessons that CFOs are learning about investment strategies that apply directly to commercial lenders.  In this article, we look at several basic capital market precepts that the average investment officer lives with every day but…