Correspondent Blog

The Fed did more than cut rates on Sunday; they pumped a massive amount of liquidity in the system, sending a signal to banks to level up. Far behind the health of employees and customers in the COVID-19 pandemic, comes the economic impact. Unlike the recession of 2008, where the economic impact came over many…

There is now little doubt that the coronavirus will spread globally and will cause more supply and demand shocks in the market. While economic activity will slow, the amount and duration of the slowdown are big unknowns. Community banks may not have exposure to Chinese markets and may not have significant exposure to the energy…

When we talk about unforeseen Black Swan events, the COVID-19 virus fits the profile. It has come out of nowhere, taken lives, disrupted public health, altered our daily lives, causing financial market volatility, caused more than five standard deviations of movement in interest rates and likely to have a material impact on credit markets. This…

Here is the funny thing about the tongue-brain connection – your brain can project, with a very high degree of certainty, what it will feel like if you lick any given object such as your desk, your shirt, car hood, a stucco wall, computer keyboard – you name it. This is despite the fact that…

There has been substantial research on how prepayment speeds of residential mortgages affect the profitability of individual loans and portfolios.  Because of the homogenous nature of residential mortgages, many firms have developed highly predictive models to calculate prepayment speeds based on past behavior, portfolio makeup, and macroeconomic variables.  However, very little research is available on…

We have written numerous blogs about why banks should reconsider the risk-for-yield business model when it comes to credit or interest rate risk. The return on equity (ROE) in risk-for-yield businesses is low, and the business outcomes during downturns are adverse.  Instead, banks should construct an advisory business where taking risk may be just one…

Banks that complain about not doing enough in marketing or not having a big enough budget may just not be taking the right approach. We rarely see a bank fully utilize their content. If done right, you can get at least five times the conversions for almost the same expense as you spend now. What…

In our last blog, we reviewed ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) strategies deployed by various central banks.  We discussed how ZIRP strategies had been deemed by many economists to be ineffective over the long-term to stimulate economic growth and stoke inflation. We considered forecasts by economists, the forward interest rate market, and FOMC policy member’s…

Last week (HERE) we looked at how deposit account tiering is used, some of the objectives that banks might employ and the effectiveness of tiering in total. As discussed last week, many banks tier without objective, without data, and without supportive marketing thus rendering the methodology worthless and possibly hurtful. We challenged several commonly held…

The build or buy decision should be a constant question in most bank’s decision making, and unfortunately, most banks default to the “buy.” In some cases, this is appropriate, but in many, it is not. In this article, we look at the two major overriding reasons of why your bank may want to hire and…

We are working with numerous community bankers to develop strategies for instituting floors on commercial loans. The idea of protecting floating or adjustable rate assets is not new to community bankers, but the current interest in this concept is spurred by specific and unusual communications and market developments that are worth analyzing. In this blog,…

Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have been lending to borrowers for many decades.  The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) have popular multifamily lending programs so much so that they now control the bulk of the market. For example, Freddie Mac’s total multifamily finance activity for 2018 was $77.5B, and…