Correspondent Blog
Banker to Banker
5 Steps to Better Treasury Management
If one product is the future of banking, it is treasury management. With a competitive offering, it will be easier to attract the small business and mid-sized companies that a bank needs to fuel its core growth. In this article, we detail the five steps to building a treasury management strategy, provide some tools to…
What You Need to Know About Moody’s Banking Sector Review
Earlier this month, on August 7, 2023, Moody’s Investor Services (“Moody’s”) published a banking sector review. That publication was referenced in the media as a US bank rating action, with a downgrade to ten larger banks (and a negative outlook to 11 other larger banks). However, that publication, directly and indirectly, identified three discrete risks…
Consumer Credit Update for 2Q 2023
If you were ever to pay attention to the consumer, the time is now. Even if your bank has limited consumer exposure, given that the consumer composes approximately 66% of the US economy, and, according to the yield curve and market pundits, we all could be staring into a recession. Paying close attention to consumer…
3Q 2023 Commercial Loan Pricing Trends
Since our last update on 2Q credit HERE, 3Q commercial loan pricing trends start with a better economic picture as higher than-planned growth and softer inflationary data have changed part of the market’s outlook. The fear of recession has decreased in 3Q, and the new primary concern shifts back to interest rate risk and deposit…
Modern Core Systems – It’s Time to Get a “Sidecar”
When banks talk about a “sidecar,” they speak about a modern, lightweight, real-time core system alongside a traditional core. The concept is that a “big bang” type conversion will never happen, so a slower, controlled transition is the path to getting a more modern core architecture. In this article, we argue why banks should consider…
How A Credit Department May Increase Risk
We estimate that approximately 50% of the community banks in the industry have a credit department that exerts influence or sets standards on loan pricing. While this process appears appropriate and benign, it increases credit risk, decreases bank profitability, and undermines the proper function of bank credit/yield tradeoff. Many bankers feel that since credit officers…
Use This Hack to Grow Commercial Bank Deposits
Seasoned bankers call it “The Distributor Tactic,” and it is a little-discussed technique used for ages in banking to speed up the sales cycle to land commercial bank deposits and treasury management accounts faster. The key to this tactic is to know that very few commercial checking customers utilize any medium or high-value treasury management…
Bank ROE – What Should Be Your Bank’s Target?
The banking industry’s return on equity (ROE) was 14.42% as of Q1/23 and so far is looking materially lower for Q2/23. How should community banks target and compare their ROE to the industry and their peer group, and what defines a top-performing bank? Most importantly, is there an ROE level ensuring a bank remains long-term…
Yield Curve Impact on Bank Profits
The bigger risk to community banks’ business model is not a moderate recession induced by aggressive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve. Instead, the more painful scenario for the banking industry is the following: no recession, short-term interest rates holding steady in anticipation of inflation reaching target rates, and a prolonged inverted yield curve….
Marketing Deposits Like Barbie
Maybe you saw Oppenheimer over the weekend, maybe it was Barbie, or perhaps you did the “Barbenheimer” thing and did both. Maybe you opted for Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part I. No matter your choice, there was a clear winner: Barbie. Film quality aside, there have been few movies in the history of the…
Bank Marketing AI – 14 Applications That Are Worth Knowing About
If you are looking to see the future of how banks will utilize artificial intelligence (AI), look no further than marketing. Even if you are not a bank marketer, this article is worth a read to understand AI’s capabilities. Bank marketing AI is ground zero to showcase the transformation that is already taking place. We…
Derivatives Usage By Community Banks
Our previous article discussed how the banking industry is taking advantage of interest rate swaps to offer borrowers lower rates, allowing banks to earn higher yields, generate substantial fee income, and protect deposit relationships. Of the largest 250 banks, 90% are using interest rate swaps, and because these largest 250 banks hold 83% of all…