Correspondent Blog

It was only two years ago when we were in the golden age of banking. The ten-year treasury was above 3%, loan growth was strong, funding cost was low, and credit quality was near its high – if not at record highs for some banks. Fast forward today, and you have a 0.67% ten-year, a…

As any lean six sigma practitioner will tell you, banks need to continuously define problems, measure against benchmarks, analyze, improve, and control their PPP Forgiveness application process. With a couple of thousand applications processed over the past five weeks, we are improving our process daily. In this article, we focus on the back end of…

The economic consequences of Covid-19 have altered average credit quality and created a flat and shallow yield curve.  Community banks are working diligently to support their local communities and survive in these challenging times.  One tool that many community banks have utilized in this business environment is a loan-level hedging product. There are several benefits…

There is no surprise that you can only do so much when it comes to educating PPP borrowers. We have produced a comprehensive website, executed a detailed email campaign, conducted a series of webinars, produced videos, have a Getting Started Guide, and distributed a checklist – still, borrowers remain deficient in completing their application accurately….

It is around this time before a presidential election that bankers start to ponder how the results of the election will affect credit, interest rates, and the general business environment.  The stock and the acceptable answer is that presidents get too much credit when the economy does well and too much blame when it slumps. The complex…

If you are like 90% if banks out there, chances are your strategic planning process is not all that effective. Chances are your strategic planning process is a good budgeting exercise, but a poor driver of strategy. It likely your current strategic plan contains something about growth, geographical expansion, and digital transformation. You could exchange…

How Community Banks Protect NIM We feel that community banks have four significant attributes that can be successfully used to differentiate their brand against competitors in the market.  Borrowers find these four attributes valuable, and borrowers are willing to pay above market rate to purchase these attributes.  But community banks must understand what these attributes…

Without approving the HEALS or HERO Acts, Congress gave little reason for banks to delay their Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Forgiveness program. As such, many banks, like ourselves, launched on the 10th. With a couple of weeks of testing and processing, we thought it might be helpful to give an update that can hopefully inform…

Community banks face a new and unfamiliar underwriting risk – an epidemiological disruption that has limited visibility and short history that affects both free cash flow and collateral values.  In addition to debt yield, debt service coverage ratio, and property values, banks now need to understand how all of these credit parameters are going to…

It is not a question of “if” it is only a question of “when” you will start deploying chat and chat automation at your bank. It should be on your radar screen for several reasons, the first of which is that it will soon be the fastest growing and the most preferred communication channel among…

We sent out a survey to several thousand community bankers across the country to understand bankers’ concerns, challenges, and opportunities in the current business environment.  We feel that organizing an exchange of ideas and sharing of strategies is beneficial to many bankers. We also offered resources (videos, white papers, policies, marketing material, online proposal generators,…

What is with all the waving we do at the end of Zoom calls? Should we start waving as we back out of the room for in-person meetings in the future? By the same token, many banks are baffled by what to do with the Main Street Lending Program (MSLP), as this is not something…