ABA Banking Journal Podcast: Recent Episodes
American Bankers Association
Bank executive insights, unique business strategies, regulatory updates from D.C., and fun banking stories—all this and more on the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, brought to you weekly by the American Bankers Association's award-winning podcast team.
The ability to pay college athletes has led to dramatic upheaval in banking college sports. Revenue-sharing with athletes has required big increases in spending that colleges may not have been counting on, just to be competitive. Meanwhile, the revenue shares and name, image and likeness marketing is putting big money in the hands of athletes who need extra support to handle it. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Q2 Software — Charles Frazier, head of the entertainment and sports banking unit at City National Bank, talks about how his team supports both colleges and athletes amid these changes. He also discusses athletes' need for holistic financial and business advice, the need for financial literacy and the growing need of college athletics programs for balance sheet solutions to help them stay competitive.
- Read a Q&A with Frazier in the latest issue of the ABA Banking Journal.
Virtually all banks engage in strategic planning, but how do they ensure the strategic plan actually drives performance and doesn't just get left in a binder on the shelf? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Q2 Software — Exchange Bank's Kevin Bender discusses tactics for making strategic planning a process that engages employees and board members in the future of the bank, drives prioritization of scarce resources and identifies each bank's biggest opportunities.
Bender will join Joseph Cady to discuss six components for every bank's strategic plan at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 25-27 in Salt Lake City. Early-bird registration ends on July 31.
What kind of difference can a single ratio make? In a new ABA DataBank essay, ABA's Patrick Mitchell and Brittany Kleinpaste discuss the FDIC's 2% Designated Reserve Ratio target for the Deposit Insurance Fund. This target — established by statute but set at the FDIC's discretion — is a level higher than the DIF's Minimum Reserve Ratio of 1.35%, and it has been 2% since it was first established in 2010.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Q2 Software — Mitchell and Kleinpaste discuss the simulations that were used to set the ratio 16 years ago and why it might be time for the FDIC to revisit them. Incorporating data going back to the savings and loan crisis, the simulation is not based on the most current data. It also relied on banks' provisioning data amid the post-financial crisis fallout without taking into account the lower ultimate cost of bank failures. Ultimately, an up-to-date simulation incorporating more current data may allow the FDIC to meet its goals of covering the industry with a different ratio.
- Read Mitchell and Kleinpaste's essay and a related technical analysis.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Q2 Software — ABA economist Dan Brown discusses the recent release of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data for 2025. He examines several trends, including the varying composition of bank mortgage loans in different regions, where banks face the stiffest nonbank competition in the mortgage market, a recent rebound in refinancings and a growing generation gap in homebuying activity.
To mark the 250th anniversary of Independence Day this week, this classic replay episode of the ABA Banking Journal — sponsored by Q2 Software — explores the role of banking and finance in the American Revolution and the founding era. John Steele Gordon is an acclaimed economic historian whose books include Hamilton's Blessing, The Great Game and An Empire of Wealth; he is also the ABA Banking Journal's "From the Vault" columnist. In this episode, Gordon discusses:
- How not having any chartered banks prior to 1782 put the United States at a disadvantage during the Revolution.
- Conversely, how the Bank of England was a "secret weapon" for Britain during the war.
- The role of patriotic financiers like Robert Morris in achieving U.S. victory.
- The debates over a central bank in the post-revolutionary period and how they contributed to the development of the Constitution.
Adam Metz, the newly appointed president and CEO of Central Pennsylvania-based Orrstown Bank, joins the ABA Banking Journal Podcast to discuss the bank's strategy and growth, its dedicated innovation group, how the bank is using AI and the bank's client-focused talent strategy.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA's Heather Trew breaks down recent news about the president's executive order on illegal immigration and the financial system and the advisory from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the OCC, the FDIC and others on red flags associated with illegal immigration. Trew covers:
- An overview of the executive order and advisory
- Financial typologies of suspicious activity linked to illegal immigration that FinCEN has identified — for individual consumers, small businesses and large businesses
- Scrutiny on the use of individual taxpayer identification numbers, or ITINs, to open accounts, and the technical complexities of differentiating between ITINs and other identifiers
- How banks can stay in the loop on developments, particularly future changes to the customer due diligence and customer identification program rules
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Nexcess — Texas banker Ryan Coaxum joins the show to discuss how he was welcomed into the banking community as an employee, and how he tries to bring that same feeling of welcome to the people he serves in his job as head of community development and external affairs at Moody Bank.
"You want to feel wanted, you want to feel like what you are doing, no matter what scale you're on, that it is important to them. And that's what I'm trying to get out, specifically in communities that are underserved or underbanked," says Coaxum. He discusses what the community development function looks like at Moody Bank, including its participation in the Bank On program and its Palm Pathways mortgage program.
Coaxum, a past winner of the ABA Emerging Leader Award and current chair of ABA's Emerging Leaders Council, also talks about how being involved in ABA as an emerging leader has boosted his career and helped him dive into advocacy on behalf of the industry.
This episode is presented by Nexcess.
- Apply for an Emerging Leader Award by June 26.
In an environment with higher-yielding options, how can banks compete for effectively for deposits? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Nexcess — Marc Womack, who leads the U.S. consumer deposits franchise at TD Bank, discusses his approach to maximizing data, customizing deposit offerings, developing valuable product bundles and using both physical and digital touchpoints to meet consumer needs.
"There is a lot of money in movement and people are looking to optimize yield, but they're balancing that with their overall financial goals and are not just making the exclusive decision to go with an institution just because they have the highest yield," Womack says. "That may be the only product or service that they actually offer that customer needs at that particular point in time, and they may have other needs that are broader than that one particular product or service."
As a community bank president and past chair of the Ohio Bankers League, Jenny Saunders has been part of many conversations with top policymakers on bank issues. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Nexcess — Saunders, who recently retired as president of FCBank, discusses how she discussed stablecoin and cryptocurrency issues with members of Congress.
"If there's something that you don't necessarily agree with, then what's the solution?" Saunders encourages bankers to think through how to describe alternatives, as well as unintentional consequences of particular approaches — and to find common ground on issues like fraud where bankers can find common ground across the policy community.
Saunders also discusses her experience leading in banks of all sizes, career advice for bankers and what the bank policy landscape looks like from the Buckeye State.
This episode is presented by Nexcess.
Over the past two decades, Pennsylvania-based F.N.B. Corporation has grown its assets from roughly $5.4 billion to $50 billion, grown its net operating income by a similar ratio and more than doubled its retail footprint. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Nexcess — Chairman, President and CEO Vincent Delie discusses his approach to growing the franchise and how F.N.B. is investing in its employees' capabilities.
Among other topics, Delie discusses:
- F.N.B.'s balance of organic growth and M&A and the role of culture in this growth.
- The bank's strategy of hiring data scientists to help the company break down silos and better target customers' needs.
- F.N.B.'s "e-store" concept and how it supports the bank's "clicks to bricks" retail strategy.
- The role of AI in recommending tailored products and providing holistic financial wellness advice, as well as strengthening bank credit and anti-fraud functions.
This episode is presented by Nexcess:
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — a crossover episode with the ABA Fraudcast — ABA's Rob Nichols and Paul Benda provide several updates on ABA's work to reduce the incidence and cost of fraud for bank customers. Among other topics, they highlight:
- Their recent participation in the United Nations and Interpol Global Fraud Summit. "One of the key messages that I heard loud and clear is the need for there to be a whole ecosystem approach," said Nichols. "It can't just be banks protecting their customers and their clients. . . . We have to get these other industrial sectors to really step up and do their fair share."
- The growing co-sponsorship of the bipartisan SCAM Act, which targets the source of many scams afflicting Americans.
- ABA's collaboration with the International Banking Federation to bring the best global anti-fraud practices home to the United States.
- The growth of state-level legislative activity, and state bankers association leadership, on fraud issues.
Several factors — the growth of the U.S. economy and asset prices, generational transitions and changing values — are reshaping the wealth management and financial advice sectors. More individuals and families are falling into the high-net-worth (investable assets of over $3 million) and ultra-high-net-worth (assets of over $30 million) than ever before. How are banks positioned to capitalize on this evolving marketplace? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA's Mark Benskin — a veteran of the wealth management sector with experience at several banks — discusses:
- The structural shift in the wealth management business, including the rise of Registered Investment Advisors that serve HNW and UNHW clients.
- The mix of services — estate planning, tax planning, asset protection and charitable planning — that clients are seeking from their advisors.
- Evolving revenue models for wealth management and the pursuit of scale.
- The strategic question for banks of building versus "renting" infrastructure.
-
How banks are positioned to break down institutional silos that hinder full-service client engagement.
-
Learn more about the ABA Wealth and Trust Schools.
In recent years, credit union business lending and the number of credit unions that exceed the statutory cap on member business lending have shot up sharply. What risks do these trends pose to safety and soundness and financial stability? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA's Dan Brown and John Vermillion discuss their recent research on the subject. Not only does outsized credit union commercial activity steers these not-for-profit cooperatives away from their statutory mission, it also increases their exposure to an asset class where they — and their regulator — have traditionally lacked experience and expertise.
Sponsor banking, or banking as a service, is a unique opportunity for banks — but it requires strategy, discipline and a laser focus on risk. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Amanda Swoverland, president of Hatch Bank, discusses her bank's strategy in BaaS. Among other topics, Swoverland talks about:
- Hatch Bank's evolution as a sponsor bank focused on embedded lending and card issuance.
- How boards of directors and bank management teams can evaluate strategy for sponsor banking.
- The importance and scope of due diligence with fintech partners.
- A recently announced partnership with a fintech firm that provides private student loans focused on upperclassmen and grad students who are approaching completion of their degrees.
- Her career journey from enterprise risk management in banking through leading compliance for a fintech startup to president of a bank.
-
The experiences she brought from fintech into her newest banking role.
-
Register for ABA's Risk and Compliance Conference.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Rob Nichols offers his top takeaways from the ABA Washington Summit — including industry unity on stablecoin regulation, credit card policy challenges, federal preemption, and bipartisan legislation on fraud. Nichols also previews his upcoming travel to Vienna for the United Nations' Global Fraud Summit.
- Catch sessions from the 2026 Summit.
Major tech platforms make billions of dollars from scammers who advertise on their sites, according to reporting from Reuters, and there's not much incentive for them to change their practices — yet. Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) have introduced the SCAM Act, which would take steps to tackle these scams. ABA strongly supports the SCAM Act, and on this crossover episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast and ABA Fraudcast, Paul Benda discusses:
- How the SCAM Act would introduce new know-your-customer and takedown requirements for tech platforms.
- Why there aren't sufficient existing incentives for platforms to deal with the deluge of scam ads.
- Enforcement mechanisms that give teeth to the SCAM Act's requirements.
- How ABA's advocacy on this issue fits into the association's overall anti-fraud agenda
From one location in Wilmington, North Carolina, Live Oak Bank is the nation's largest Small Business Administration lender and a leading partner in developing technology for community banks. With an uncertain economic and business environment, two top executives from Live Oak Bank joined the ABA Banking Journal Podcast to discuss:
- How Live Oak delivers personalized banking services to a nationwide footprint.
- Where small business owners are looking to grow and build in the coming months.
- The need for liquidity in small business acquisitions and succession planning.
- The role of technology, including AI, in helping to improve the ability of banks to serve small business clients.
- How SBA loans fit into the Live Oak business model.
- Tips for community banks looking to deepen their SBA-guaranteed lending, including outsourcing back-office functions to ensure compliance with guarantee requirements.
If Texas were an independent country, its economy would rank as the world's eighth-largest. "France is the seventh largest economy in the world and I don't think it'll take as much time at all to catch them," laughs Texas Bankers Association Chairman Ron Butler. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Butler — who is also vice chairman and chief administrative officer of $14 billion-asset, Abilene-based First Financial Bank — talks about:
- What makes the Lone Star State a compelling economic story and an attractive market for investment (and out-of-state bank acquisitions).
- First Financial's approach to balancing organic growth and M&A.
- The urgency of accelerating de novo bank activity.
- How he and Texas bankers are approaching questions of deposit insurance reform.
- How Texas bankers have been engaging the global economy.
The discontinuation of penny production in 2025 caused operational challenges for banks when the regional Federal Reserve banks said they would stop accepting pennies for deposit at coin terminals -- accelerating the circulation shortage that's posing challenges for retailers. Today, the Fed reversed that decision, resuming deposits effective Jan. 14. On the latest episode of the podcast, ABA payments expert Steve Kenneally walks through the Fed's decision, the operational challenges the penny phaseout poses to retailers and banks, ABA's regulatory and legislative advocacy for improvements to the handling of coinage reform and ABA resources for banks, frontline staff and consumers.
- View ABA resources on the penny phaseout.
The Philippines is a fast-growing economy, but it lags its peers in the unbanked rate, with more than four in 10 Filipinos unbanked, according to McKinsey. Many Filipinos use nonbank-provided ewallets, but bank penetration is on the rise since 2020, when the central bank approved a new license type for digital banking, helping the Philippines' traditional banks meet the mobile-first needs of Filipinos. In this episode, Russell Hernandez of UnionDigital Bank provides a unique look into the Philippine banking sector. He also discusses how his mobile-first digital bank tackles account takeover attempts and other frauds through layers of mobile-based and biometric authentication.
The bank consolidation logjam broke in 2025, with several banks, including large regionals, inking major deals amid an accelerated pace for approvals. While that may reflect both pent-up deal flow and a rush to get transactions done in a favorable environment, on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Paul Davis notes that the rush is forcing everyone in the market to pay attention and be ready. Davis discusses how these factors, as well as the underlying forces driving consolidation, the capital markets environment and credit conditions will shape the mergers and acquisitions outlook throughout 2026.
Jon Sisk and Matt Lujano's banks couldn't be more different at first appearance — Sisk is a top executive at a community bank in Santa Cruz, California, near the beating heart of America's tech ecosystem, and Lujano leads a bank primarily based in a rural area of western Iowa where farming is dominant. But they share a positive outlook on the role of tech in community banking. As chair and vice chair, respectively, of ABA's Community Bankers Council, they reflected on what it means to be a tech-forward community bank in a podcast following the committee's recent D.C. meeting. Among other topics, they discuss:
- Forming AI brainstorming groups within banks to facilitate collaborative innovation.
- The use of generative AI tools to accelerate policy development and exam preparedness.
- Being ready to move quickly on stablecoins, tokenized deposits and digital assets, even if customers aren't demanding solutions.
- Good ideas surfaced in conversations among CBC members.
Stay tuned for more conversations on tech-forward community banking within the ABA Banking Journal Podcast channel.
The Erie Canal — one of the biggest milestones of American history — celebrated the bicentennial of its completion this week. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, acclaimed economic historian and Banking Journal columnist John Steele Gordon and editor-in-chief Evan Sparks discuss the canal's development and construction, the involvement of the Savings Bank of New York in financing it, how it transformed New York and the Midwest, and how the canal created future demand for mass transport of goods by other means, helping fuel the republic's development as a commercial powerhouse.
Blend's Intelligent Origination — an AI-powered orchestration layer embedded in Blend's platform that reduces the cost of loan origination, improves speed and accuracy, and redefines how lenders and borrowers experience the lending process.
PNC Bank is the nation's eighth-largest bank by assets and the sixth-largest by deposits, but it ranks fourth in the number of physical branches. In a time when many banks are streamlining their in-person service locations, why has PNC doubled down on branches? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, PNC executive Jeff Martinez explores:
- The role of branches in marketing and account acquisition, particularly business accounts.
- PNC's strategy of combining organic growth and M&A (most recently in Colorado with FirstBank).
- Professional opportunities created for bank employees through the in-person delivery network.
- The role of personal touches — down to thank-you notes and branded umbrellas — in reinforcing the bank brand through the client experience.
With equipment repair costs up 40% over the past few years, how farmers deploy expensive agricultural machinery is of top concern for ag bankers. With equipment increasingly complex and often software driven, many equipment manufacturers have limited the ability of operators to repair their equipment without voiding warranties — leading to delays and lost harvests as farmers wait for service amid a shortage.
While this trend has led to a "right to repair" movement in many states, the issue of equipment costs and lost revenue during breakdowns remains a factor in lending decisions, says Pat Kussman, president and CEO of Regional Missouri Bank and chairman of the Missouri Bankers Association. "There are many things that are eroding at our cash flow for our farmers," he notes, "not just input costs, but land rent costs and equipment repair costs."
Kussman also discusses the state of the used equipment market, how farmers are using drones to manage crops less invasively and the growing role of artificial intelligence tools in functions like disease identification
This episode is presented by Agri-Access.
- Register for the ABA Agricultural Bankers Conference, Nov. 12-14 in St. Louis
Banks have been using natural language processing and machine learning applications for years in managing their anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act obligations. But how does the growing adoption of generative AI tools affect how BSA and fraud professionals protect their banks? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Agri-Access — former FDIC official Lisa Arquette shares a regulator’s-eye view of generative AI in the BSA world and how regulators have been approaching the technology for their own work.
Joined by ABA SVP Heather Trew, Arquette also discusses:
- The state of play on banks’ beneficial ownership reporting obligations.
- Other elements of implementing the AML Act of 2020.
- How regulators weigh AML/BSA performance when approving mergers and acquisitions.
- Fluctuations in AML/BSA compliance investments through the economic cycle.
- The low number (1%) of BSA-related examinations at the FDIC that result in enforcement actions.
Register for the ABA Financial Crimes Enforcement Conference, Oct. 14-16 in Arlington, Virginia.
In the wake of the summer’s Genius Act, many banks and nonbanks have announced new stablecoin initiatives. Another digital asset — tokenized deposits — may meet needs similar to stablecoins, but the two asset types have significantly different features based on their underlying designs. On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA experts Brooke Ybarra and Yikai Wang discuss:
- The key differences between stablecoins and tokenized deposits.
- Risks that widespread payment stablecoin adoption poses to community bank lending.
- Use cases for payment stablecoins (and areas where hype might exceed value).
- How U.S. banks are approaching stablecoin and tokenized deposit pilots.
Princess Castleberry began her career in risk management in financial services, and the biggest risk she sees today is that “leaders are in a capacity crisis.” Work experience, education and professional networks are undermined by this lack of capacity driven by emotional triggers, she says, which are in turn compounded by a massive wave of societal, economic and technological change.
Now an instructional design expert and leadership speaker, Castleberry discusses how leaders can understand and manage triggers to enhance their capacity to lead with empathy. Castleberry will also be discussing these and other topics — including how to reduce “conflict waste” — at the ABA Annual Convention next month in Charlotte.
The rapid evolution of the financial services marketplace means the market for banking as a service is also evolving rapidly. From artificial intelligence to other new technologies to regulatory expectations, how is the partner bank sector shifting? On the season premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Pathward Bank CEO Brett Pharr talks about the Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based partner bank’s strategy. Among other things, Pharr discusses:
- The evolution of the business model beyond interchange to include embedded finance, faster payments and other opportunities.
- The criticality of third-party risk management in partner banking.
- How Pathward is using AI to accelerate compliance review of its partners’ marketing materials — and how some AI uses might be limiting young bankers’ learning and development.
- The role of partner banks in advancing financial sector participation by the unbanked.
- How Pathward builds its workplace culture with its “talent anywhere” remote work structure.
The U.S. is experiencing a massive demographic shift driven by the aging Baby Boom generation, declining birth rates and shifts in immigration trends. What effect will aging have on the banking outlook? In the season finale of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA economist JP Rothenberg discusses how America’s aging population:
- Shifts balance sheet management strategies with a surplus of stable deposits by weaker localized loan demand.
- May increasingly push banks into new markets to drive loan growth, which further accelerates consolidation.
- Magnifies credit risk during downturns in the tail of the risk profile
- Increases opportunities for personalized wealth management solutions and expands the growth prospects of senior-serving business sectors.
Alongside the commercial and consumer markets, institutional banking is one of three strategic pillars of $70 billion-asset UMB Bank. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, UMB’s Phil Mason discusses:
- How institutional banking — which includes capital markets, corporate trust, custody and health savings accounts — fits into the business model of the Kansas City, Missouri-based bank and helps extend its footprint coast-to-coast.
- Investments in technology to support the growth of institutional banking.
- The recent expansion in HSA eligibility and how UMB Bank uses the product to engage both business clients and consumers.
- How UMB sources the right mix of talent — particularly from within — to support the diverse and individualized needs of its institutional clients.
What does the future hold for bank risk and compliance professionals? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Krysti Cunningham of Security National Bank in Omaha, Nebraska — and winner of the 2025 Distinguished Service Award for Risk and Compliance — discusses:
- The technological transformation in risk and compliance at community and midsize banks.
- How technological change is driving the industry toward specialization.
- Applications for AI tools and LLMs in risk and compliance — and how to manage risks associated with this transformation.
- The importance of constant learning as a risk and compliance professional.
Following the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, hear from ABA experts on how key ABA-supported provisions on tax policy, rural real estate and health savings accounts in the budget reconciliation law will affect banks. Experts also discuss what to expect next in terms of implementation.
Resources * Click here to download the episode if you can’t see the player above. * View a members-only staff analysis
ABA’s new online platform to provide members with free access to the Treasury Check Verification System is now live. On a special joint episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast and ABA Fraudcast — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — ABA anti-fraud experts Paul Benda and Hannah Ibberson discuss the platform and how banks can put it to use. Among other topics, Benda and Ibberson discuss:
- The scale of physical U.S. Treasury checks and why they remained a potential vector for fraud
- How and why ABA developed the platform
- How ABA member bank employees — including frontline staff — can access the portal to verify a payee
-
Ways this new platform fits into ABA’s overall anti-fraud initiatives
-
Click here to download the episode if you can’t see the player above.
- Access the TCVS portal (ABA bank members only)
Amid tariff-related volatility, how are small and midsize businesses and the banks that serve them faring? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — John Buran, the president and CEO of Queens-based Flushing Financial discusses how tariff and trade policy-related volatility has compounded commercial client uncertainty based on interest rates over recent months and why uncertainty has slowed loan growth and investment.
However, Buran also notes that lending has improved in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, “possibly associated with the Fed keeping rates stable since the middle of the middle of last year. So I think that has helped somewhat. Banks are staying very close to their customers . . . so that they can come out the on other side in a favorable position.”
Buran also discusses opportunities for community banks to gain market share in the New York City metro area real estate market and the potential for regulatory change under newly confirmed Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman.
Jim Ryan has led Old National Bank through a massive wave of growth — through major mergers and organic growth, the Evansville, Indiana-based bank has reached $70 billion in assets and a footprint that extends from Minnesota to Tennessee. The bank has grown by 250% since Ryan moved into the CEO role in 2019. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — Ryan discusses:
- The bank’s growing profile, including its new marketing partnership with the on-fire Indiana Fever.
- Why the bank remains committed to its hometown of Evansville, even as it grows into a more expansive regional bank.
- His views on deposit insurance reform and areas other areas of focus as chair of the American Bankers Council, ABA’s peer group for midsize bank CEOs.
Ryan also discusses the experience of leading Old National through the devastating mass shooting at a Louisville, Kentucky, bank branch in 2023 — a tragedy that claimed the lives of 5 victims, all of them bank employees. “We always felt like we were a family, but that definition of family was completely reinforced,” he says. “After you go through a tragedy like that, it takes a lot of love, it takes a lot of support, and it takes a lot of care.”
So-called “First Amendment auditors” have long filmed themselves trying to provoke police and other public officials into stopping them from recording in public settings. Now, some auditors are targeting banks, filming for hours outside bank branches and seeking to goad bank employees into calling law enforcement. The latest episode — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — features tips from bankers and security professionals on how to handle a First Amendment auditor at a bank location while protecting bank employees and customers.
- Read more in the ABA Banking Journal.
- Access tips from ABA’s Bank Security Committee.
As independently owned and operated small businesses, fast-food restaurant franchisees have unique business needs. They have mobile and often part-time workforces, complex inventory management and the constant challenge of managing both a small business and being the face of a major brand. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Bix2x — Wendell Bontrager talks about how Sonata Bank is working with this unique market segment.
For example, “we can come in at fractional costs to provide them things like telehealth, mobile phone insurance, pet insurance, in a way that is free to the employee but is done and sold through the franchisee,” says Bontrager. He outlines Sonata’s business of lending to “quick-service” restaurants, as they’re often called in the trade, paired with employee benefits, treasury management and a software-as-a-service platform for QSRs.
Bontrager also talks about the health of the Nashville, Tennessee, market where Sonata’s community bank franchise is headquartered and how the organization has been able to capture talent with hybrid and remote workplace offerings.
Government-guaranteed lending requires special expertise and back-office functionality that grows increasingly expensive for smaller banks. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Bix2x — Chris Hurn and Jeremy Gilpin of Community Bankshares, a bank holding company in La Grange, Georgia, discuss how they are tackling that challenge.
“To start one of these departments is very expensive for a lot of rural banks and credit unions,” says Gilpin, “It’s very prohibitive to enter the market space if you are a rural bank or even in an urban market where you do you know, maybe 5, 10, 20 of these loans a year.”
Hurn and Gilpin are part of a team that has built Community Bankshares, parent of Community Bank and Trust of West Georgia, into a network of Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture lending subsidiaries that work on a nationwide basis. They developed a model that allows the “the holding company [to] serve as a source of strength for the bank, not just the other way around, which is typical,” says Gilpin. Gilpin and Hurn discuss the company’s role as a white label lender, referral lender, participation partner or servicer for smaller banks that want to connect their clients to guaranteed loans and the strength of the bank model for supporting these businesses and agricultural enterprises.
Quantum computing is an entirely new way of processing information, and it has the power to solve extremely difficult computational problems much more quickly than binary computers. As the technology continues to advance, the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — explores how payments and banking might be affected by the technology. Among other topics, the episode addresses:
- Applications for quantum computing in liquidity management and other complex payment and settlement chains.
- The risks quantum computing poses to current encryption technology and the timeframe over which current encryption might be compromised.
- The emergence of “quantum-safe cryptography.”
- The risk of decryption quantum computing poses to data harvested in past breaches.
- Emerging regulatory expectations for quantum computing-related risk management.
This episode is presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest.
Resources: * Nacha’s report on quantum computing and payments * FS-ISAC podcast on post-quantum cryptography
The payment by the Federal Reserve of interest on bank reserves may sound like an abstruse matter of economic theory, but these payments are critical to bank operations and the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. In the latest episode — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — ABA’s Jeff Huther discusses why proposals to end or reduce interest on reserves are misguided. Among other things, Huther discusses:
- Why ending payments could have a destabilizing effect on the financial sector.
- Why, under today’s accounting practices, the federal government would see no near-term bottom-line boost from capturing those payments.
- How reducing or eliminating interest on reserves would disproportionately harm community banks.
Read more in Huther’s ABA DataBank post.
ABA’s Washington Summit just wrapped up, and this episode — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — features a main stage conversation with Travis Hill, acting chairman of the FDIC. In this episode, Hill discusses:
- Revisions to the FDIC’s supervisory appeals process.
- Transparency in bank merger reviews by regulators.
- The future of bank capital policy after the Basel III “endgame.”
- Ethics and operational improvements at the FDIC.
April is Financial Literacy Month, a time when bankers think creatively about how to engage young people on topics of financial wellness. Citi’s Michelle A. Thornhill and Roads to Success’s Bashan Fernandez for a discussion of Citi’s approach to making financial knowledge fun and engaging. In this episode — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — they discuss several innovative approaches, including:
- Citi’s financial empowerment workshop for New York City middle schoolers, to be held on Teach Children to Save Day on April 22 at Citi Field in partnership with the New York Mets and several youth-serving nonprofits.
- Citi’s work with IlluminArt to produce Sami the Squirrel and the Great Acorn Adventure, a live play about financial literacy for elementary-age students.
- How Roads to Success uses budget scenario games and financial escape rooms to integrate fun into financial learning.
- Free tools from the ABA Foundation, including newly updated Teach Children to Save lesson plans, to help banks deliver engaging financial education in April and all year long.
In the wake of this week’s significant executive order directing the Treasury to eliminate the use of paper checks for federal government disbursements (and payments to the U.S. government), ABA’s Steve Kenneally joins the podcast for a conversation on what’s next for the payments system. In this episode — sponsored by nCino — Kenneally discusses:
- The role of Treasury checks in check fraud schemes.
- The order’s aggressive timeline, with an implementation date of Sept. 30, 2025.
- The significant challenges faced by different federal agencies in phasing out paper payments.
- The potential scope of exceptions to the order.
-
How banks can help the small remaining user base of Treasury checks switch into bank accounts, including Bank On-certified accounts.
-
Read our ABA Banking Journal feature on “Is it time to kill the paper check?“
Legislators and regulators are strongly focused on policy related to payment stablecoins, most recently with the passage of the Genius Act in the Senate Banking Committee. On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by nCino — ABA’s Brooke Ybarra and Kirsten Sutton discuss the current policy and technology landscape on stablecoins. Among other topics, they talk about:
- How stablecoins work and why people are interested in this kind of digital asset.
- Use cases for payment stablecoins, such as cross-border payments.
- Challenges that stablecoins may pose for today’s anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act framework.
- The outlook in Congress for the Stable Act in the House and the Genius Act in the Senate and what these bills would do.
- Key principles for thinking about stablecoins, including economic effects, disintermediation of financial institutions, regulatory arbitrage and consumer protection.
- How ABA is engaging on Capitol Hill and with regulatory agencies on stablecoin issues.
The big story of check fraud is not only its vast cost to the country and to individual victims, but simply the remarkable rate at which it is increasing. On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by nCino — we bring you a conversation from the ABA Fraudcast with ABA’s Paul Benda and Caitlin Piasecki of the United States Postal Inspection Service the enormous scale and challenge of addressing mail theft, a common venue for criminals to access paper checks.
Piasecki describes how the internet serves as a perfect sharing and recruiting platform for criminals aiming to get their hands on as many paper checks as possible. Encrypted platforms are where criminal organizations in New Jersey can easily connect with those operating in Los Angeles, she notes. “We have seen a huge influx in the complex nature these investigations have taken, where previously it was a local group in a local area,” she says.
A century ago, in March 1925, Charles G. Dawes was sworn in as vice president of the United States. Being elected vice president of the United States — as Dawes was, alongside Calvin Coolidge, in a landslide — is usually a career pinnacle for an American politician, but Dawes’ vice presidency turned out to be more of a footnote in his eventful life. In the second part of this two-part podcast series — presented by nCino — Dawes biographer Annette Dunlap explores Dawes’ service as head of logistics for the American Expeditionary Force in World War I (an organizational feat never before pulled off in American military history), his work in international diplomacy during the 1920s, his vice presidency under Calvin Coolidge and how he engineered a bailout for his troubled bank in the throes of the Great Depression.
A century ago, in March 1925, Charles G. Dawes was sworn in as vice president of the United States. Being elected vice president of the United States — as Dawes was, alongside Calvin Coolidge, in a landslide — is usually a career pinnacle for an American politician, but Dawes’ vice presidency turned out to be more of a footnote in his eventful life. In the first part of this two-part podcast series — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Dawes biographer Annette Dunlap walks listeners through Dawes’ early life, his big ideas in banking and his service as comptroller of the currency, and how he built up Chicago as a regional banking center. At this centennial moment, and in this 150th anniversary year for ABA, it’s worth reflecting on the fascinating and complex life of Charley Dawes.
In rural southeastern New Mexico, bank CEO and varsity bowling coach Ken Clayton often takes his team on 500-mile one-day roundtrips for bowling tournaments. For Clayton, that commitment to going the distance is also what community banking is about. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Clayton discusses what makes community banks like his tick.
And as chair of ABA’s Government Relations Council, he also talks about ABA’s legislative and regulatory priorities for the year ahead, including tax reform and Subchapter S, regulatory challenges like the Section 1071 final rule, the SAFER Banking Act, credit card interchange policy and more. For Clayton’s 22-employee bank, policy challenges hit home in a challenging way since he and his CFO also share duties as the bank’s compliance officers. “As a banker, don’t just sit at home and say, ‘Gee, I wish this was different,'” Clayton says. “Get involved. It’s very rewarding, not to mention that it helps your customer and it helps your community.”
Clayton also discusses his own career journey in banking, his home community of Artesia and his approach to developing leaders within his bank.
- Read the ABA Blueprint for Growth.
- Register for the Washington Summit.
A recent article in the New York Times — “Love and Money: Why Sharing Accounts Is Good for Your Relationship” — explores scholarly evidence for the benefits of couples’ combining their bank accounts. The article features the insights of Indiana University marketing professor Jenny Olson, who appeared in 2023 on the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. For a special Valentine’s Day episode, we bring back that classic podcast episode — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — in which Olson discusses her research on joint accounts and couples’ well-being.
Olson and her colleagues randomly assigned new couples to one of three conditions for a two-year period: using only separate accounts, using a joint account only or to a third group that received no instructions about the kind of accounts to use. Couples in the no-instruction group and the separate account group saw declines in relationship quality during the experiment, couples with joint accounts were “buffered” against the declines otherwise expected, she says.
“Because we randomly assigned couples, we can take better steps toward understanding causality,” Olson says. “Our results really do suggest that having a joint bank account improves relationship quality.” While every couple’s financial needs are unique and separate accounts may be what’s needed in many situations, Olson discusses implications of the research for how bankers and wealth managers approach financial planning conversations with clients.
- Read the paper by Olson et al. in the Journal of Consumer Research.
This episode is presented by R&T Deposit Solutions.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — ABA’s Jeff Huther and Sharon Whitaker rebut a false narrative about how banks are managing commercial real estate credit risk. Expanding on a rebuttal to a New York Fed paper, they explore why measures of distress and undercapitalization used by the New York Fed and some in the media are inconsistent with common definitions and ignore bank-borrower relationships, accounting principles and valuation techniques.
“We’re now almost three years past the last shock to the sector, and people have had a lot of time to kind of think through how to deal with this and what the implications are for credit risk,” says Huther. “We’re in a situation where ” extending and pretending” is just not the right way to describe the condition and market.”
- Read the ABA DataBank post.
Today's episode features a crossover from ABA's brand new podcast series: ABA Fraudcast: Cyber and Fraud with Paul Benda. Community banks can be targets of large-scale fraud, just like larger banks. On the inaugural episode of the ABA Fraudcast, former ABA Chair Dan Robb, president and CEO of Jonesburg State Bank in Missouri, describes the recent targeting of his bank by fraudsters who texted thousands of residents of his community, seeking access to customer accounts. What followed for Robb and his team were fast lessons on all the areas his bank was prepared for, and a few challenges that were surprising. “We are no longer dealing with a mom-and-pop criminal,” says ABA’s Paul Benda, Fraudcast host. “This is institutional crime.”
To find the ABA Fraudcast, visit aba.com/fraudcast or look for it in your favorite podcast app.
From AI and crypto to complex regulatory challenges and increasingly diverse markets, bank executives face increasingly complex strategic decisions — and so do bank boards as they set and oversee the strategic direction for their banks. And yet, the average age of bank directors is 76, and many do not have expertise in these critical challenges affecting banks.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, veteran bank board members and executives Jenn Docherty and Virginia Varela discuss how bank boards can position their banks for success in a challenging environment. They discuss the importance of sourcing diverse expertise and how board members can start and lead difficult conversations about where their banks need to go, creating space for new ideas and giving management more flexibility — and more incentives — to innovate.
Docherty and Varela will discuss these topics and more at the ABA Conference for Community Bankers, Feb. 16-18 in Phoenix.
In this holiday bonus episode — sponsored by TransUnion — host Evan Sparks digs into the Banking Journal archives to learn more about the “Christmas Club” savings vehicle, and what this financial product says about human psychology and behavioral economics.
This episode is presented by TransUnion.
“Well, your money’s in Joe’s house, that’s right next to yours. And in the Kennedy House, and Mrs. Macklin’s house, and, and a hundred others. Why, you’re lending them the money to build, and then, they’re going to pay it back to you as best they can.”
Seventy-eight years ago, George Bailey memorably explained the operation of a mutual savings and loan to a national audience in It’s a Wonderful Life. But while today’s bankers understand mutuality, do today’s potential clients? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by TransUnion — bank leaders Gregg Tewksbury and Lori Dufficy discuss a new campaign, Mutuals Matter, that aims to educate consumers about mutual bank ownership. Among other things, they talk about:
- Why present, and future, customers need to be educated about the distinctive values of mutuality.
- How the campaign developed messaging that resonates with consumer.
- The role of the campaign in helping mutual bank employees understand their unique value proposition and take pride in their work.
This episode is presented by TransUnion.
- If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
- View the campaign at MutualBanksMatter.com.
- Read more in the ABA Banking Journal about public opinion on mutuality.
- Register for the ABA Mutual Community Bank Conference, April 6-7 in Washington, D.C.
The rarely used Congressional Review Act provides an opportunity for Congress and the president to overturn regulatory rulemakings — and the GOP trifecta in 2025 will bring new regulations up for review. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by TransUnion — ABA experts Kirsten Sutton and Ginny O’Neill break down details about CRA that bankers need to know:
- Which rulemakings are subject to CRA disapproval resolutions — in financial services, principally Section 1033 and the newly finalized overdraft rule.
- How the GOP Congress might prioritize regulatory actions for CRA resolutions.
- The limitations on CRA and why, as Sutton says, “this is not a magic wand situation where Congress can just step in and CRA everything that we have a problem with.”
This episode is presented by TransUnion.
Saved by the bell? Millions of American businesses faced a January 1 deadline to register their beneficial owners with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — until a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction yesterday stopping FinCEN from enforcing the deadline. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by TransUnion — ABA experts Heather Trew and Jonathan Blum discuss:
- What bankers and their business clients need to know about the preliminary injunction and its provisions.
- How the preliminary injunction does not affect financial institutions’ customer due diligence requirements — even if businesses are not required to report their beneficial ownership information to FinCEN, banks are still obliged to collect it from clients as part of CDD.
- Potential ramifications for AML/BSA activities if the Corporate Transparency Act that authorized the BOI registry is found to be unconstitutional.
- How this and other cases challenging the BOI registry may shake out, as well as the range of views on Capitol Hill on where to go from here.
- How ABA is engaging with both the current Congress and administration, and will advocate with the next Congress and incoming presidential administration, on these issues.
This episode is presented by TransUnion.
Advertising jingles: corny or clever? “Imagine the repetition over years in a community that hears it regularly,” says Clark Hook of Financial Marketing Solutions. “It’s whether you love or hate jingles, you cannot deny the power of that mnemonic device to put attribution to the things you’re putting into the world.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — we take a look at bank jingles past and present. Expert bank marketers discuss:
- How and why community banks still find value in their jingles.
- The use of “sonic branding” and audio signatures as an alternative to traditional sung jingles — and how that sonic branding builds on historically successful and long-running jingles.
- The role of music in memory and brand recognition.
- Where banks overseas are using jingles.
- The interesting intersections between bank marketing and pop music.
Read Craig Colgan’s recent article on bank jingles.
Middle market businesses don’t get the attention of the Fortune 500 or the love that small businesses get from policymakers, but these firms are still critical to the economy — accounting for a third of private-sector GDP and employing up to 50 million Americans. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — KeyBank commercial bank president Ken Gavrity discusses the outlook for the middle market, defined as businesses with annual revenues of $10 million to $1 billion. Among other topics, Gavrity discusses:
- Why middle market business leaders have grown more positive this fall about the outlook.
- How middle market firms’ cost control and resilience-building during the inflationary period position them well as rates begin to come down.
- The improvement in the talent outlook for middle market firms.
- How middle market businesses are prepared to capitalize on the efficiencies, including automation and AI, that they instilled in the past few years.
- How KeyBank integrates its commercial payments business with its middle market services.
This episode is presented by Agri-Access.
The Republican sweep of the presidency and Congress, with extremely narrow control of the House, sets up tax policy as a major issue in 2025. With many provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expiring at the end of next year and tax policy changes able to be passed on a simple-majority basis through budget reconciliation, bankers can expect to see tax policy front and center. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — ABA VP Joey Connor discusses what to expect from the tax policy debate in 2025, including:
- The priority of extending Section 199(a) provisions for Subchapter S banks.
- Potential approaches to paying for a multi-trillion-dollar tax package.
- Issues related to credit union taxation and the base erosion that accompanies CU purchases of community banks.
- A range of complex technical tax issues, including GILTI, BEAT and Pillar 2 changes.
With commodity prices falling and producer expenses rising, it’s a difficult moment for America’s agricultural economy. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — Dakota Mac loan production officer Caleb Hopkins discusses strategies ag lenders are using to support their clients through this cycle. As chair of ABA’s Agricultural and Rural Bankers Committee, Hopkins also provides a preview of the upcoming ABA Agricultural Bankers Conference.
This episode is presented by Agri-Access.
John Asbury didn’t need a new job in 2016, but when he saw an opportunity build something lost in the 1990s — what he calls “the great Virginia regional bank” — he took it. Eight years later, Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bank has more than tripled in size and is on track to reach nearly $40 billion in assets after completion of an announced acquisition of Sandy Spring Bank. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — AUB CEO Asbury talks about the transformation of the bank. He also discusses his agenda as the newly elected chair of the American Bankers Association, including advocating to remove arbitrary asset thresholds that distort banks’ strategic growth plans, his approach to leadership development at the bank and his commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.
Crypto investment scams cost Americans billions of dollars. The scammers start small with confidence or romance scams and gradually work their way up to demanding ever larger “investments.” On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — officials from the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission break down how these scams work, typologies and red flags bankers should look out for and how banks can build proactive partnerships with law enforcement. They also discuss a new educational infographic on these scams produced jointly by the ABA Foundation and several government agencies.
How do community banks balance the need for cutting-edge technology and the human touch? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Pamela Montpelier of Ballston Spa National Bank talks about how a laser-like focus on customer experience can help drive growth. Among other topics, Montpelier discusses the use of AI-based tools to improve decision-making and help bank employees replace manual processes with time spent engaging clients. She also talks about her experience working with a variety of banks as a service provider executive, prior to which she was the youngest female bank CEO in Massachusetts.
As president and CEO of $50 billion-plus BOK Financial, Stacy Kymes spends time thinking about the role of regional banks in the U.S. economy. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Kymes talks about how BOK Financial finds unique niches and meets the credit and capital market needs in its core mid-America markets. Among other topics, Kymes discusses:
- BOK Financial’s diversified business model that balances lending with fee businesses like an EFT network and treasury and wealth management.
- The role of Tulsa, Oklahoma-based BOK Financial in financing the energy economy.
- BOK Financial’s tribal banking programs in Oklahoma and New Mexico, including a unique mortgage loan product for tribal lands.
- The bank’s plans to grow share in core markets of Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas and Houston.
- BOK’s approach to talent management, recruitment and acquisition.
- The importance of having banks headquartered in “flyover states” that can meet the capital markets needs of large and middle-market firms.
Miami is often described as the northernmost city in Latin America, or sometimes as Latin America’s business capital. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Banesco USA Cali Garcia-Velez discusses how he and his team are growing a Latin American banking franchise in South Florida and Puerto Rico. Among other topics, Garcia-Velez discusses:
- The origins of Banesco USA, which is an independent U.S.-chartered bank that is part of a franchise of other Banesco banks across the Americas.
- Banesco USA’s growth plans in the turbocharged South Florida market, including its pivot into C&I lending and residential mortgages to balance its commercial real estate portfolio.
- How Banesco USA’s loan growth was fueled by a capital award from the Treasury Department’s Emergency Capital Investment Program for minority depository institutions.
- His own journey as a banker, which included turnaround assignments at troubled banks in Puerto Rico.
Most bankers dread the thought of a core conversion, but once that decision is made, the process can open up new opportunities for strategic growth. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Webster Five CIO Kate Megraw discusses her bank’s conversion and what she learned. Among other topics, Megraw explains:
- How a new core met the business strategy needs of Massachusetts-based Webster Five.
- The process of developing an RFP, exploring models and working with a core selection consultant.
- The role of commercial client growth in driving the need for a new core platform.
- Challenges and successes experienced in the conversion process.
Megraw will join fellow Core Platforms Committee members to discuss conversions at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 27-29 in New York City.
As chief corporate responsibility officer for Webster Bank, Marissa Weidner works across the bank’s footprints and business lines to help advance the bank’s goals of financial empowerment. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Weidner discusses the many dimensions of how this takes shape at the northeastern regional bank. Among other topics, she explores:
- Webster’s focus on access to capital for small businesses, including those owned by minorities and women.
- How Webster designed its special-purpose credit program focused on homeownership.
- Webster’s innovative “finance labs,” built in partnership with local schools and nonprofit partners, to provide hands-on financial experience for young people from low-to-moderate-income areas.
- The role of Bank On accounts in Webster’s financial inclusion strategy.
Weidner also discusses her career journey — including experience in economic development, bank human resources and bank merger integration — that led her to her current role.
This episode is presented by Alkami.
Fraud is front and center for America’s banks, and on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — ABA’s Paul Benda and Peter Cook discuss several recent initiatives taken by ABA to help banks tackle fraud from a variety of fronts.
- Benda discusses ABA’s recently expanded Fraud Contact Directory, which is free to all banks and now encompasses other forms of fraud to facilitate prompt claims.
- He also explores new tools banks are using to tackle rising fraud numbers.
- Meanwhile, Cook discusses the latest incarnation of ABA’s award-winning #BanksNeverAskThat anti-phishing campaign — returning for a fourth year in October and also free to all banks — and previews a new companion initiative, Practice Safe Checks, that educates consumers about how to avoid becoming unwitting victims of check fraud.
Earlier this week, VersaBank closed on its purchase of Stearns Bank Holdingford N.A., giving the Canadian point-of-sale lender a point of entry into the U.S. market. On the season eight premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — VersaBank founder and CEO David Taylor discusses the bank’s growth plans in the United States.
Taylor also explores his career history in banking, the story of VersaBank as the first new bank to receive a license in Canada in 18 years, how the bank developed a deposit broker network in Canada, VersaBank’s point-of-sale lending strategy (and how it can acquire loans without any equity from the finance company), and VersaBank’s talent and culture.
This episode is presented by Alkami.
Consumers everywhere see and hear credit union marketing campaigns, from PenFed’s ubiquitous jingle to big stadium and Super Bowl sponsorship deals. In fact, according to a new ABA DataBank post from ABA’s Dan Brown and Robert Flock, credit unions spend more than double what comparable banks do on marketing as a percentage of net income.
But why do credit unions, which serve members from defined fields of membership, spend so much? On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Brown and Flock break down the legislative and regulatory history of fields of membership and how the average credit union has more than doubled its “potential membership” since new rules were finalized in 2015, using their taxpayer subsidy to fuel growth via marketing rather than lower rates and costs for their members.
At the midpoint of the year, what’s the M&A outlook like for community banks? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA Banking Journal Contributing Editor Paul Davis discusses what he’s seeing with mergers and acquisitions and what to expect for the remainder of 2024.
Davis, the founder of the Bank Slate newsletter, also discusses what he’s hearing from banks about succession planning and talent and talks about budget forecasting, an area the Bank Slate is surveying bankers on for 2025.
On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA economist Jeff Huther discusses recent dynamics with the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, the “world’s most important number.” Huther delves into topics in his his new ABA DataBank essay, exploring how quantitative tightening has pushed SOFR toward the upper end of the Federal Open Market Committee’s rate target range, the effects of monetary policy mechanisms like the Overnight Reverse Repo Facility, and how banks and other SOFR users can manage volatility that may emerge in the rate.
To mark Independence Day this week, this classic replay episode of the ABA Banking Journal explores the role of banking and finance in the American Revolution and the founding era. John Steele Gordon is an acclaimed economic historian whose books include Hamilton’s Blessing, The Great Game and An Empire of Wealth; he is also the ABA Banking Journal’s “From the Vault” columnist. In this episode, Gordon discusses:
- How not having any chartered banks prior to 1782 put the United States at a disadvantage during the Revolution.
- Conversely, how the Bank of England was a “secret weapon” for Britain during the war.
- The role of patriotic financiers like Robert Morris in achieving U.S. victory.
- The debates over a central bank in the post-revolutionary period and how they contributed to the development of the Constitution.
“We’re seeing banks that have never been scrutinized before for redlining and being told that they have risk that they have not before and risk in ways that they’ve never really viewed it before,” says Andrea Mitchell. “We’re in some new territory, and I think it’s important for CEOs to understand what their compliance officers and legal departments are seeing on the ground.”
In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Andrea Mitchell, a top fair lending attorney, reviews the latest trends in redlining enforcement. She reviews cases brought by the Justice Department, the importance of screening programs, planning for entering new markets, the role of peer analyses in managing redlining risk and the effects of redlining enforcement on M&A activity.
Mitchell also discusses the intersection of DOJ enforcement and prudential supervision, noting that “if your regulator thinks you’re doing very well, even in in terms of minority market lending, and is relying on your CRA rating, there’s nothing that prevents HUD or DOJ or other agencies from scrutinizing you.”
Brent Beardall thinks bankers need to be more comfortable with risk. “We’re not out there taking crazy risk, but my point is don’t be afraid to fail,” says the president and CEO of WaFd Bank, based in tech-focused Seattle. “If you’re going to fail: fail quickly, fail small. That’s the two requirements I have, because if you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough.”
In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Beardall discusses technology experiments that didn’t work, and those that did. He discusses the bank’s tech lab subsidiary Archway Software and its combined voice- and phone-based authentication for wire transfers.
Beardall discusses WaFd’s commercial real estate portfolio, which he notes is majority “stabilized multifamily, which is the safest asset class that we or any bank can make.” Office buildings — the most distressed CRE asset class — account for just 4% of WaFd’s portfolio, Beardall says, noting that CRE is a big and diverse sector beyond the office headlines.
Finally, Beardall talks about his remarkable personal story of surviving a deadly plane crash in early 2023. “You’re flying on a jet airplane to go to the Rose Bowl, and all of a sudden you go from being pretty good to fighting for your life and you realize just how vulnerable you are and how precious life is because it can change in a heartbeat,” he says. “People that I competed with, bankers that I would compete with, they set it all aside and said, “Let’s focus on helping each other.’ We have a lot more in common than we have in terms of differences, and let’s give equal weight to what we have in common and work together for the collective good.”
“I need people who understand technology and the business more than I need people who understand compliance,” says Greg Imm, who recently retired as chief compliance officer at M&T Bank. “I can teach them compliance. I cannot teach them technology. We are paying much more attention on what is going on in technology that never existed five, six years ago.”
The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — features part two of a two-part conversation with Imm and David Kelly, retiring chief risk officer at Denver-based FirstBank. At ABA’s Risk and Compliance Conference in Seattle, Kelly was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Risk, and Imm was honored with the Distinguished Service Award for Compliance.
In part two, Kelly and Imm discuss the role of technology in the compliance and risk disciplines, how they hire and coach talent, and their involvement with ABA and other professional development providers over their careers.
This episode is presented by Alkami.
- Listen to part one of this conversation.
In a time of heightened regulatory risk and business challenges, “that’s where the risk professionals become very important,” says David Kelly, CERP, who recently retired as chief risk officer at Denver-based FirstBank. “Those relationships across business lines, because the risk will flow across those business lines, and getting stakeholders together to have those conversations.”
The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — features part one of a two-part conversation with Kelly and Greg Imm, the retired chief compliance officer at M&T Bank and Fifth Third Bank. At ABA’s Risk and Compliance Conference in Seattle, Kelly was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Risk, and Imm was honored with the Distinguished Service Award for Compliance.
In part one, Kelly and Imm discuss their experience across different institutions — Kelly spent most of his career at FirstBank, while Imm worked at numerous large and regional banks as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. They also discuss the evolving role of technology in risk and compliance professionals and how soft skills contribute to risk and compliance career development.
This episode is presented by Alkami.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — Anthony Sharett, president of Pathward N.A., discusses how his FDIC-insured bank works alongside depository institutions to expand offerings that enhance financial inclusion and reach the unbanked. Sharett discusses Pathward’s reloadable co-branded prepaid card business — which can help a bank offer a Bank On-certified account — as well as its gift card business line. Sharett discusses how Pathward uses a design thinking approach to work with its bank clients to “co-create” products. “There are lots of banks out there that are providing valuable services to customers, providing solutions, providing products that they need, but is there a gap?”
He also talks about new areas where Pathward is branching out, including commercial finance solutions like merchant services, and working capital. “As we think about financial inclusion and financial education and bringing people through that journey of creditworthiness, we are excited about the credit builder product for small and midsize businesses, which are really those entrepreneurs that are the backbone of how we just expand commerce in the United States,” he says.
During the conversation, Sharett also talks about his own background in bank leadership as an attorney who rose up the ranks on the risk and compliance side of banking, and he discusses how Pathward, formerly known as Metabank, developed its new brand when it sold its trademarks to newly renamed Meta Platforms.
This episode is presented by Biz2X.
What’s new with Small Business Administration lending this year, and how can bankers maximize the value of the SBA loan guaranty programs? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — Erik Daniels of U.S. Bank, the nation’s fourth-largest SBA originator by number of loans, talks about how U.S. Bank builds SBA into its overall business banking strategy.
Daniels highlights the role of SBA lending in making efficient use of capital, mitigating risk, providing more tailored solutions to businesses and driving Community Reinvestment Act impact. He also talks about the value the bank gets out of making SBA loans as a portfolio lender, “which gives our customers great opportunity with rate structure, modifications, any flexibility down the road. . . . Being a portfolio owner gives us the optionality to help them in any way that we can to make their experience a good one.”
Daniels also discusses anticipated changes to SBA programs in 2024 and 2025, and he shares insights on the small business outlook from U.S. Bank clients and survey research.
This episode is presented by Biz2X.
Checks have become so marginal that the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Payment Choice relegates them to a category of “other,” which, along with prepaid cards and money orders accounted for less than 9 percent of all payments in 2022. But checks aren’t entirely dead, with 11.2 billion still written in the U.S. in 2021. Meanwhile, their use by criminals as a vector of fraud has shot up. Which raises the question: The paper check won’t die. Is it time to kill it? This episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — sets out to answer that question, with the help of top bankers and experts in the payment space.
According to newly released Gallup figures, just 30 percent of American workers are engaged in their work. The rest are described as disengaged, with 17 percent actively disengaged, “which means they are literally trying to sabotage the organization,” notes Neil Stevens, president and CEO of Oconee State Bank in Oconee, Georgia. “Gallup also says that if you have a 70 percent or higher engagement score, you’re 23 percent more profitable than those with lower engagement scores. So engaged teams truly, in my mind, lead to healthier cultures, better customer retention.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Stevens discusses his approach to cultivating a bank where engagement scores have climbed to 89 percent, triple the national average. Stevens works to build this culture through a framework called Leading Life on Life that emphasizes loving, equipping, affirming and developing (“LEAD”ing) team members. Among other topics on the show, Stevens discusses the role of love in bank management, the importance of active listening and how an environment of healthy affirmation actually allows leaders to hold their teams to higher standards.
- Hear Stevens discuss bank culture and employee engagement at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 27-29 in New York City.
For Financial Literacy Month in April, the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — features a conversation on how banks are engaging their communities with financial education. The ABA Foundation’s Kelsey Havemann discusses a brand-new K-2 Teach Children to Save curriculum launching soon, and Lindsay Torrico talks about the Foundation’s big goal to help five million people get on the path to financial prosperity.
- Access free financial education resources from the ABA Foundation.
What’s the CEO-eye view on the U.S. economy, business conditions and the regulatory environment for banks? This week’s episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — features a conversation with ABA’s Peter Cook and four bank CEOs from across the country. In the conversation, they discuss local economic conditions in their markets, how the “regulatory tsunami” is affecting banks of all sizes, the commercial real estate outlook, what they’re most excited for in the future of banking and more.
“These rewards are more than just Amex, Chase, Citi,” says Brian Kelly, founder of the popular travel site The Points Guy. “Well over half of Americans have some form of rewards, often through their community banks — and to a lot of people, cash back rewards.” This bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — features a conversation with Kelly and ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols from ABA’s Washington Summit.
In this episode, Kelly discusses his personal story of getting involved with reward travel, his opposition to efforts to cap interchange or impose routing mandates on credit cards and the value that all kinds of consumers get out of card rewards.
- Read more about taking action on interchange and routing on Secure American Opportunity.
The banking agencies and the Justice Department are shifting how they assess and review bank mergers and acquisitions. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — ABA SVP Hu Benton discusses what bankers need to know about potential deals and offers amid the wave of policy changes.
Among other topics, Benton explores:
- The Justice Department’s review of bank merger guidelines
- The FDIC’s newly released policy statement on mergers.
- How the OCC is evaluating mergers among national banks and federal thrifts.
- How bank mergers fit into the Biden administration and executive agencies’ broader approach to antitrust considerations.
- A new resource from ABA and Squire Patton Boggs to help banks assess their readiness for a transaction.
Access “Bank Mergers & Acquisitions: A Self-Assessment Guide“
This episode is presented by Alkami.
Forget Tom Brady: Most professional athletes don’t play well into their 40s. “You play football for three to four years,” says Brandon Ghee. “And then the next thing you know you’re 25, 26. You’re looking to pursue a career and you go from making $750,000 a year to $50,000. These guys and girls have a problem with the transition [in]how they’re spending during their careers.”
Athletes make a lot of big financial decisions at fairly young ages. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — Ghee, a community banker and former NFL cornerback, discusses how Cogent Bank’s sports and entertainment vertical comes alongside to help with this transition. In addition to traditional financial services, the bank offers specialized education on investing and financial decision-making as well as referrals to key service providers.
Ghee also discusses the fast-growing wave of highly compensated athletes amid the rollout of NCAA permission for name, image and likeness marketing deals and why student-athletes and their families need support and engagement from banks.
- Access financial education resources from the ABA Foundation.
First Horizon Bank, a regional bank based in Memphis, Tennessee, offers some eye-catching numbers on the bank’s gender balance: Women make up 62 percent of its executive team, 54 percent of its top 1,200 corporate managers and 33 percent of its board of directors.
To mark International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — features three top executives from First Horizon discussing how the bank built an inclusive culture. For Beth Ardoin, chief communications officer, it’s less about focusing on women per se and more focusing on “how do we build the organization around exceptional talent, no matter who you are, where you came from?”
Hope Dmuchowski, First Horizon’s CFO, adds that for “our top talent, whether they’re female, male or diverse, we’re making sure they have lots of opportunities for lots of people that see how talented they are.” Ardoin, Dmuchowski and Erin Pryor, chief marketing and experience officer, also discuss the role of sponsorship, allyship and executive leadership in creating a culture that allows women to showcase their excellent work. “Great work always speaks for itself,” says Pryor. “How do you take those who are doing great work and helping to lift them up and to lift the women who are doing great work in the organization and amplify them?”
Resources:
- Access women in banking resources and training from ABA.
- Register for the ABA Women Lead Symposium, July 17, 2024.
- Listen to First Horizon’s Bucket List-ening podcast.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — ABA’s Dan Brown and Sharon Whitaker discuss community bank exposures to commercial real estate and how community banks are managing shifts in the CRE sector. They also dispel imprecise narratives about the state of CRE.
“There is a lot of nuance within the commercial real estate market,” says Brown. There are going to be some challenges for sure. But at the same time, too, though, there’s going to be a lot of resilience. A lot of these loans are very conservatively underwritten. I think a lot of banks would be in a very good position no matter what may come in the future.”
This episode is presented by Alkami.
If the past has any predictive power, rate-watchers may want to discount the chance of significant rate movements this election year. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA VP Jeff Huther summarizes his analysis of Federal Open Market Committee actions during presidential elections, showing that in rare circumstances — well-telegraphed technical movements from a low base or during crisis moments like 2008 — the FOMC has generally refrained from taking action that could be perceived as political. Huther discusses what this means for the 2024 interest rate outlook.
“We’re really focused on increasing competition and innovation in the core provider landscape,” says ABA Core Platforms Committee Chair Kristiane Koontz. “We want to make sure that people know core conversions are an option, and we want to help make that easier and less risky for banks to undertake. But in many cases, a core conversion may not be the right path.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, the host catches up with Koontz at the Conference for Community Bankers to discuss the committee’s recent work on core resilience and competition, as well as the committee’s plans for 2024. The show also features past chair D.J. Seeterlin of Chesapeake Bank on the committee’s newly released Core Provider Flexibility Assessment, a tool to help banks identify what the need to power their strategies.
Sometimes there are good reasons for friction in the banking experience: to stop fraud, to comply with laws. But sometimes the friction is a result of legacy tech — and legacy thinking. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Anne Tangen, a bank IT expert-turned-CEO at BankFive in Fall River, Massachusetts, talks about BankFive’s efforts to reduce friction in the account opening process, as well as her work to smooth the path for talented women in the community bank C-suite.
Tangen also discusses her own career experience working at banks of all sizes and how BankFive is embracing its mutual identity and investing in growth.
- Connect with peers on these issues at the ABA Mutual Community Bank Forum and ABA Women and Allies Forum, March 17 in Washington, D.C.
The multiyear effort to change the credit scoring models required by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continues to move forward, and mortgage lenders, credit officers and compliance professionals need to know the latest developments. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA VP Sharon Whitaker provides an update. Among other topics, Whitaker discusses:
- The operational challenges of moving from today’s tri-merge system to merging just two credit reports.
- How FICO 10T and VantageScore 4.0 differ from credit scores in use today.
- Why rushing the transition might be counterproductive to the initiative’s financial inclusion goals.
- The role of core platforms and other technology vendors in supporting the transition.
- What may happen in the Federal Housing Finance Agency makes the change but the Federal Housing Administration, Veterans Administration and others don’t.
- Why the industry needs to see data on how the new credit scoring models would perform, and how banks can get involved in sharing feedback with FHFA.
- Learn more about the credit score transition at the American Mortgage Conference, April 15-17 in Savannah, Georgia.
- Contact Sharon Whitaker to join ABA’s working group on the issue.
Late in 2023, Warsaw Federal — a $71 million mutual savings and loan in Cincinnati — was officially designated as a minority depository institution. The move to MDI status is part of the 130-year-old bank’s pivot to serving its community more deeply while building its capital base to support growth. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, President and CEO Robie Suggs discusses the bank’s strategy.
Among other topics, Suggs discusses:
- Why and how Warsaw Federal sought and obtained MDI status, and how it helps the bank meet the needs of the Price Hill community of Cincinnati.
- The role of the bank in serving unbanked and underbanked households in Price Hill.
- Warsaw Federal’s use of tier 1 mutual capital certificates.
- How Warsaw Federal is supported through its affiliation with First Mutual Holding Company.
- Her own journey as a banker and community and economic development executive.
Join mutual bank peers at the ABA Mutual Community Bank Forum March 17-18 in Washington, D.C.
Last week, the ABA Banking Journal Podcast featured the CEO of Esquire Bank, a nationwide bank with a focus on law firm banking. On the second part of this two-part series, the podcast welcomes Kyall Mai, chief innovation officer, to discuss how the bank reaches this niche market. With the goal of getting lawyers (“who are often very difficult to convince,” he notes) to switch banks, Mai emphasizes the need for content marketing, data and top-shelf technology.
Mai discusses Esquire Bank’s content marketing site, LawyerIQ, which has a unique value proposition of educating attorneys on the business side of running a law firm successfully. He explores how LawyerIQ’s AI-driven tailored content helps the bank generate leads in a niche market. He also talks about the bank’s use of Salesforce platforms and other technology services to compete for business.
Esquire Bank has found a strategy that turns the typical ratio of business client loans to deposits on its head. Through its nationwide vertical of services for law firms, Esquire Bank brings in roughly $1.80 in core deposits for every dollar lent. On the first ABA Banking Journal Podcast episode of 2024, Andrew Sagliocca — president, CEO and vice chairman of Long Island-based Esquire Bank — discusses the bank’s unique niche in serving the litigation sector, including the complex financing its clients require, and how the bank developed its strategy to meet these firms’ needs. Sagliocca also discusses the bank’s merchant services solutions and how they fit into the bank’s strategy.
On the final ABA Banking Journal Podcast episode of 2023 — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — John Vivian of Patomak Global Partners and ABA EVP Hugh Carney discuss the OCC’s latest Semiannual Risk Perspective, released earlier in December. Both past veterans of the OCC, Vivian and Carney explore the agency’s findings — including the way credit risk and leapfrogged liquidity risk over the course of the year and the OCC’s concerns on artificial intelligence, among other topics — and what they portend for bank supervision in 2024.
From the Basel III endgame to Regulation II to new Community Reinvestment Act and Section 1071, 2023 has delivered a regulatory onslaught for the industry. How are bankers navigating the waves of overlapping changes? On this episode, Gary Shook, chair of ABA’s Government Relations Council, reflects on the council’s recent meeting and offers perspectives on how banks can navigate the policy environment.
Shook also highlights areas where ABA is looking to press gains on its positive agenda, including the SAFER Banking Act, the ACRE Act and financial inclusion. And as president and CEO of Community Bankers’ Bank in Virginia, Shook discusses the role of bankers’ banks in today’s landscape, including helping the industry transition to new payment platforms like FedNow.
For high-net-worth clients, generational transitions can be fraught moments — implicating business ownership sales, control transfers, tax situations, philanthropic decisions and of course family dynamics. On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — Todd Brockwell, president of 1900 Wealth, offers strategies for bankers and wealth managers to help their clients navigate these transitions.
A veteran of family offices in central Texas, Brockwell discusses how bankers and wealth managers can effectively approach generational dynamics and difficult conversations. He also emphasizes the importance of education, especially for young people in these families. Brockwell offers practical examples of how wealth managers can add value in family transitions.
He also discusses the business model of 1900 Wealth and how it interacts with its “old school” parent, Jefferson Bank, a community bank in San Antonio.
- Register for the ABA Wealth Management and Trust Conference, Feb. 21-23 in New Orleans.
For new couples, does the decision of how to organize their finances — separate accounts, a joint account or a blend of the two — matter? On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — Indiana University marketing professor Jenny Olson discusses new research that provides an answer.
Olson and her colleagues randomly assigned new couples to one of three conditions for a two-year period: using only separate accounts, using a joint account only or to a third group that received no instructions about the kind of accounts to use. Couples in the no-instruction group and the separate account group saw declines in relationship quality during the experiment, couples with joint accounts were “buffered” against the declines otherwise expected, she says.
“Because we randomly assigned couples, we can take better steps toward understanding causality,” Olson says. “Our results really do suggest that having a joint bank account improves relationship quality.” While every couple’s financial needs are unique and separate accounts may be what’s needed in many situations, Olson discusses implications of the research for how bankers and wealth managers approach financial planning conversations with clients.
- Read the paper by Olson et al. in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Family-owned businesses — especially those crossing the mark of $10 million in annual revenue — often have unique banking needs. They have the freedom to make long-term investments, but they also face challenges associated with funding for growth, complex family dynamics and the need to manage liquidity events for family members, says Mikel Williamson, the newly appointed president and CEO of First Bank in the St. Louis area.
On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — Williamson discusses how $6.7 billion-asset First Bank — itself a family-owned enterprise — supports this sector through its Center for Family-Owned Businesses and wealth planning options. He also discusses the bank’s investment in core transformation and open digital banking architecture and his background in Texas banking before joining First Bank earlier this year.
“When we’re able to take banking to them, at a place where they already have trust with their employer, that’s a bridge,” says Jennifer Huffman of Atlantic Union Bank’s workplace banking product. “From there we’re able to grow that relationship.”
In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — Huffman provides an overview of Atlantic Union’s Solutions Banking product, which brings consumer accounts into more than 2,300 small and midsize business clients of the bank. She discusses how it fits into Atlantic Union’s organic growth strategy, how the program developed and how it furthers the bank’s financial inclusion and financial financial wellness goals.
Huffman also discusses her career journey at Atlantic Union Bank, describes her role in the bank’s Women’s Inclusion Network and shares her tips for leadership and career development as one of ABA’s Emerging Leader Award winners for 2023.
“Banks have long supported consumers accessing their own data, but believe it should be done in a safe and sound way that provides them with control,” says ABA VP Ryan Miller. With respect to Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB “has attempted to put that into place here.”
In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — Miller provides an overview of the long-awaited Section 1033 proposed rule. In this episode, Fink also talks about:
- How the bureau’s proposed framework recognizes industry-led efforts like FDX to facilitate safe data-sharing.
- The end of screen-scraping as envisioned in the proposal.
- Challenges in the proposal on liability issues and privacy.
- The need for a level playing field in terms of how Section 1033 supervision is applied across banks, nonbank fintech providers and aggregators.
- The compliance timelines envisioned for banks of different sizes and the types of accounts covered.
- How core providers will be positioned to help banks comply.
To join ABA’s comment letter working group, contact Ryan Miller.
“Capital investment has surprised a great bit of our economy and the business community,” says TD Bank EVP Bill Fink. “As rates go up, how could we be having stronger capital investment?” In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — the third in a series of conversations on the business outlook, sponsored by Intrafi — Fink discusses how the fiscal stimulus of the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as state economic development packages for incentivized facilities in the high-tech, semiconductor and green tech sectors, are offsetting the increase in rates.
In this episode, Fink also talks about:
- Where businesses are looking for growth in an era of rates being “higher for longer.”
- The durability and strength of warehousing and manufacturing facilities in commercial real estate.
- Continued opportunities for add-on acquisitions amid a constrained M&A market.
“Often, economic change occurs at this level of the economy,” says Umpqua Bank EVP Richard Cabrera about the middle market of the commercial sector. “While economic concerns still linger, there’s tremendous optimism.” The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — continues a series of conversations on the business outlook, following last week’s episode on the perspectives of CFOs at large corporates and the upper end of the middle market.
In this episode, Cabrera discusses:
- What Umpqua Bank’s latest Business Barometer survey says about optimism and growth plans among small businesses and the middle market, which represents 45 million jobs and one-third of U.S. GDP.
- How banks can work effectively with small and middle market clients, including advising on cybersecurity.
- Why small and middle market businesses in the western U.S. are more optimistic than their counterparts in other regions.
- The growing trend of onshoring and nearshoring in middle market supply chains — and what that means for their commercial real estate needs.
- The continued strength of industrial and warehouse real estate.
Corporate CFOs and finance leaders are “best leading indicators.” says Stephen Philipson, head of global markets and specialized finance at U.S. Bank. “They always have to be looking ahead.” On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — Philipson discusses findings from U.S. Bank’s 2023 CFO Insights Report, among them:
- Large and middle-market corporate CFOs’ accelerated transition from growth mode to cost-cutting and what the slowdown in capital expenditures and business investment may mean for the economy.
- How banks can support corporate goals for improvements in technological capabilities.
- The demand of large and middle-market corporate clients for instant payment solutions like FedNow and RTP.
This episode is sponsored by Intrafi Network.
The latest incarnation of ABA’s award-winning #BanksNeverAskThat anti-phishing campaign returns for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Servbank — ABA’s Amy Wertlieb talks about new resources this year, including a return of the popular scam quiz and an all-new consumer-facing site plus customizable resources in Spanish. Banks can register for free and use campaign materials all month or at any point during the year.
- Learn more about #BanksNeverAskThat and register.
With the availability of credit card rewards at stake under the Durbin-Marshall credit card bill, bill sponsor Sen. Roger Marshall dismisses consumer concerns about their rewards. “Rewards are for rich people,” Marshall said derisively at a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday in response to media questions about consumers’ preferences.
Facing Marshall at the press conference just happened to be nearly 50 bankers from his home state of Kansas, in D.C. for their annual Washington Visit. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Servbank — three leaders from that delegation reflect on the press conference and what they heard. The podcast guests also discuss the urgency of banker advocacy on Durbin-Marshall, as its sponsors seek to attach it to other legislative vehicles, and they debunk false talking points to show that consumers and small businesses of all income levels use and benefit from credit card rewards. They also illuminate the stakes of the Durbin-Marshall debate for everyday credit card users.
- Take action to oppose credit card routing mandates.
Employee resource groups have become an important part of diversity, equity and inclusion strategies at larger companies. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Servbank — two bank leaders explore how the ERGs provided by ABA for bankers to benefit from this kind of resource at banks that may not be large enough to host an ERG in-house.
Among other topics, Latia Coleman and Krys Lassiter, who lead ABA’s Black Bankers ERG for African-American bankers and allies, provide tips on:
- Creating spaces that help all people feel included, learn, grow and be more authentic.
- How ERGs can be used at banks of all sizes.
- Tools and resources offered by ABA’s Black Bankers ERG, including education, DEI best practices, public speaking and mentorship.
-
The importance of allyship in making ERGs successful.
-
Join an ABA ERG or peer group.
There’s a lot going on in the innovation space in banking. On the season seven premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Servbank — ABA SVP Brooke Ybarra provides an overview of hot issues in the fintech space, including generative AI solutions like ChatGPT. For example, she explores potential use cases for a wide range of generative AI solutions in banks as well as how generative AI can be leveraged by bad actors. Ybarra also talks about ABA’s new partnership with the Nashville-based Project Fintech accelerator and how that partnership, along with ABA’s longstanding venture investment strategy, help banks access the most promising early-stage technologies. She also previews the pre-conference Innovation Forum at ABA’s Annual Convention.
- Register for Annual Convention.
Check fraud continues to be a growing problem for banks of all sizes — and it’s not going away anytime soon. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi — ABA’s Paul Benda and James Hitchcock discuss how banks can enhance their defenses against check fraud, including new technologies and integration of investigative intelligence as check fraud and cyber fraud intersect in dangerous ways. Benda and Hitchcock also outline key dynamics of today’s check fraud trends that bankers need to know. Finally, they discuss ABA’s new and free Check Fraud Claim Directory, which provides all banks — ABA members and non-members alike — with access to contacts and formatting requirements for check fraud warranty breach claims.
- If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
- Access the ABA Check Fraud Claim Directory.
Nearly 72 million Americans were covered by health savings accounts at the end of 2022, an increase of 6.5% from the year before, and HSAs are used across the income spectrum, with 75% of accountholders living in a zip code with a median household income of less than $100,000. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi — ABA’s Kevin McKechnie and HSA expert Eric Remjeske discuss the findings of the latest ABA HSA Council/Devenir survey of HSA accountholders. McKechnie and Remjeske also talk about how HSAs fit into the business models of banks of all sizes, why large numbers of community banks have become HSA funds custodians, how banks use HSA plans for their own employees and policy issues facing HSAs in the coming months and years.
- Read the ABA/Devenir study of HSA accountholders.
Bank partnerships with colleges and universities hold promise to help banks tackle human resources challenges: creating a pipeline of rising professionals with banking exposure, and diversifying banks’ talent bases. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi — Tennessee Tech professor Alma Núñez and ABA SVP Jamie Beaulieu discuss how these partnerships work and how to make the most of them. Among other topics, Núñez and Beaulieu explain the shape of these partnerships, explore how to design them to leverage the value of experiential learning and offer best practices and recommendations for banks building these partnerships.
- Hear Núñez and Beaulieu dive deeper on this topic at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 8-10 in Nashville.
In today’s environment of elevated interest rates and a tech sector market correction, how is the banking-as-a-service landscape shaking out? The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi — features a conversation with Piermont Bank’s Rodrigo Suarez on current trends in the BaaS sector (on both the bank side and the nonbank side), the BaaS business models that make the most sense and how banks can approach profitability in the BaaS space.
Suarez also discusses what it’s like to jump to the de novo banking sector from a nonbank fintech like Piermont Bank and talks about his experience as a recent graduate of the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking.
The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi — features the winners of ABA’s Distinguished Service Awards for Risk and Compliance. Jim Bedsole, chief risk and compliance officer at BankSouth, won the 29th annual award for compliance professionals, while Joanne Campbell, EVP and chief risk officer at Camden National Bank, won the inaugural distinguished service award for risk management. Prior to receiving the awards at ABA’s Risk and Compliance Conference in San Antonio, Bedsole and Campbell were interviewed about:
- Their career journeys in the risk and compliance sectors.
- How risk and compliance have both emerged as distinct practices as well as converging.
- How they stay current on risk and compliance trends.
- Technology and the future of risk and compliance.
Take a deep dive into the evolving world of transaction monitoring with Ted Sausen, an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) expert from NICE Actimize. Ted provides expert insights into the shifting AML paradigm, shedding light on recent innovations and their implications for your financial institution. Are you ready for the future of AML detection? Discover which game-changing technologies are set to transform the fight against financial crime.
The cover story of the latest issue of the ABA Banking Journal features an unprecedentedly transparent look into what happens inside a financial institution during and after a ransomware attack. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — Evan Sparks shares the true story of this anonymized bank and how it tackled what could have become a crippling ransomware attack. Sparks discusses:
- How hackers got in, the early moments after an attack happens and how the bank responded.
- The current ransomware threat environment for banks.
- How to execute on a cyber incident playbook and mobilize partners and vendors.
- Messages and services the bank provided to customers during the incident.
- Fatigue and other challenges facing the bank’s team during the hack.
- Lessons learned and post-mortem changes the bank made to prevent a future incident.
First quarter earnings reports are done, and bank shareholder meetings are currently going on — and rarely have these activities been in the public spotlight as now in the wake of three significant bank failures. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — ABA Banking Journal Contributing Editor Paul Davis discusses:
- The overall resilience seen in the banking sector’s first-quarter earnings reports.
- The disconnect between the health of the banking sector and financial market performance for certain bank stocks.
- What to expect from this season’s annual shareholder meetings, including anticipated activist activities.
- An update on M&A activity in 2023.
The CFPB’s final rule implementing Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act represents major change to how banks process and handle small business loans — taking what in many banks is a bespoke, tailored financial product and requiring a whole new way of doing business. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — ABA SVP Kitty Ryan discusses:
- An overview of the Section 1071 final rule.
- Implementation deadlines and partial wins in extending them from the narrow timeframes in the proposed rule.
- Other wins from ABA advocacy, including on privacy and on racial and ethnic identification that aligns the final rule more closely with the statute.
- Software challenges banks will face as they implement the final rule.
- Despite a few improvements, why ABA continues to be disappointed in the final rule — with an open advocacy call for Congress to rescind the rule.
After years of being “FedSoon,” the Federal Reserve’s instant payment network FedNow is preparing to go live this summer. What do banks need to know in the final months before launch? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — ABA SVP and payments expert Steve Kenneally discusses: * Key implementation deadlines for FedNow in 2023. * How FedNow compares to existing instant payments services like RTP and Zelle. * Lessons from the FedNow pilot experience. * Business strategies that banks are employing in their FedNow rollout. * Where to start with core providers on FedNow implementation.
If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
Register for and view recordings from ABA’s free FedNow webinar series.
For many small business owners, the first step on the credit ladder is the hardest, and they may miss opportunities to build business credit and grow their business while relying on personal credit instead. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — Amegy Bank EVP Jevaughn Sterling talks about Zions Bancorporation’s Small Business Diversity Banking Program, organized as an “special-purpose credit program” under Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Sterling discusses:
- What defines an SPCP and how it is designed to improve access to capital by helping small business owners build business credit instead of relying on personal credit.
- How Zions designed the Diversity Banking Program to be tailored to the needs of disadvantaged small business borrowers.
- How loan terms may look similar and different for Diversity Banking Program participants.
- The nuts and bolts of designing, getting regulatory approval for, launching and marketing the Diversity Banking Program.
- Results seen, lessons learned and tips for other banks considering a special-purpose credit program.
- His own career journey as a commercial lender.
View ABA resources on special purpose credit programs.
How can community bank emerging leaders take initiative in innovation? The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — features a conversation with Tim Shangle, AVP for innovation and data analytics at ChoiceOne Bank in Sparta, Michigan. Shangle, who is also vice chair of ABA’s Emerging Leaders Council, advises bankers to take small steps and explore what new technologies — say, ChatGPT — can do. Shangle also discusses his own unusual career path from seminary training into banking and how he carved out a niche for himself as a go-to for innovation.
The ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — wraps up Women’s History Month with a conversation on an early Texas banking pioneer: Anna Mebus Martin (1843–1925). Museum curator Diana Vela tells the story of Martin, a German immigrant who arrived in the Lone Star State at age 14 and settled in rural west-central Texas. At the age of 35, Martin was widowed and began a long and successful career as a postmaster, storekeeper, rancher, barbed-wire entrepreneur and, ultimately, a community bank founder and president. As Martin once put it in a surviving letter, “I heard men say, ‘She is only a woman,’ but I showed them what a woman could do.”
Revisit the critical days of March and April 2020 in Washington on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. In this episode — sponsored by Intrafi — former Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria discusses his new book Shelter from the Storm: How a COVID Mortgage Meltdown Was Averted. Calabria recounts the key decisions made in designing COVID-19 forbearance policies for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-owned mortgages and how he tried to avoid problems experienced during the post-financial crisis forbearance programs.
Whereas many observers believed post-2008 relief was not well-targeted, Calabria said FHFA sought to target COVID forbearance to those who needed it most, including encouraging landlords to pass on relief to renters who otherwise cannot tap into homeowner forbearance. In the end, he says, 2 million Americans were helped and the relief was fully paid for by the GSEs. Calabria also discusses lessons for future crisis responses.
After the fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank failure, the ABA Washington Summit is one of the most important events to hear from the banking policymakers shaping the response — including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and all “big four” in Congress: Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ranking Member Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).
On the latest episode of the podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — ABA’s Rob Nichols and Kirsten Sutton preview the Summit program and why this is such a critical moment to share expertise with lawmakers and hear from those shaping the response to SVB and Signature Bank. “You’ll get the benefit of the latest thinking and what’s the path forward, and we have them all back to back in one day,” Nichols says.
How does a community bank whose bread and butter was mortgage lending make the business sustainable in a time when mortgages have increasingly moved to the nonbank sector? “We made a conscious decision,” says Benjamin Bochnowski, CEO of $2 billion-asset Peoples Bank in Munster, Indiana. “We had to modernize it and help it grow; it couldn’t exit as a small mortgage operation that only originating $40 million a year in mortgages.”
On the latest episode of the podcast — sponsored by Intrafi — Bochnowski, who is also president and CEO of Peoples’ parent company Finward, talks about how Peoples Bank built a residential mortgage operation that accounts for a third of its real estate lending portfolio and that originated about $80 million in mortgages last year for portfolio (with more sold in the secondary market). He also talks about how the bank deployed new underwriting and servicing platforms to improve operational efficiency and enhance customer experience.
Bochnowski also discusses how Peoples Bank seeks to embody its mutual heritage even after its stock conversion, the bank‘s organic growth strategy and opportunities for M&A deals, and his own career journey in community banking.
As a bank leader, Alicia Wade notes that we’re at a unique moment that won’t recur for many years: having four generations, from Baby Boomers to Gen Z, working alongside each other. “Being able to have four generations in the workplace and understand what each of them values and what we can learn from each other” allows not just for top-down mentorship but for cross-generational learning and inspiration, she notes. “I have mentors in each age demographic.”
On the latest episode of the podcast — sponsored by Intrafi Network — Wade talks about the community bank workforce and career opportunities and traces her own “accidental” her career path from teller to becoming president and COO of $560 million Valliance Bank in Oklahoma City. Wade talks about the broad range of careers in banking. She also discusses what she’s most excited about in the community bank customer service experience.
Finally, as a member of the Oklahoma Bankers Association’s Government Relations Council, Wade discusses several issues on the radar in the Sooner State, including ESG issues and cannabis banking. On March 7, Oklahomans will vote on legalizing recreational marijuana, and the state already has one of of the loosest frameworks for medicinal marijuana regulation, making the state the “wild wild West of marijuana,” Wade says, highlighting the importance of getting legislation like the SAFE Banking Act passed.
For Valentine’s Day, the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by xChange — brings you a classic boy-meets-girl love story. Virginia Rollins had moved to Washington, D.C., as a young woman in the 1950s and got a job as a teller at Industrial Bank, a Black bank still operating in the nation’s capital. A young bank customer named Ben Ali came in to make a deposit, but he was smitten with Virginia and left his phone number too.
To make a long story short, Virginia and Ben founded one of Washington’s most legendary dining establishments, Ben’s Chili Bowl in the heart of “Black Broadway” on U Street. Virginia reflects on her early career in banking, how the connections she made at the bank helped her and Ben grow their business and the importance of minority depository institutions today. She also shares stories of hosting Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, surviving the 1968 D.C. riots and the long years of urban renewal and how Ben’s has grown today.
In 1903, Maggie Lena Walker became the first Black woman to charter a U.S. bank when she opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia, as the bank’s first president. In a classic replay episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by xChange — historian Shennette Garrett-Scott tells the story of Walker and her mission to help Black women find financial empowerment and professional career opportunities.
Garrett-Scott, the author of Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal, discusses:
- How Walker countered impressions that Black women were uniquely risky bank clients.
- The broader context of African-American banks and what set Walker’s St. Luke Bank apart.
- The relationships between Black banks and mutual aid societies and fraternal organizations like the Independent Order of St. Luke.
- How newly professionalized Progressive Era financial regulators threw up hurdles to Black-owned banks and insurers.
- The St. Luke Bank’s relationships with white-owned banks in Richmond and elsewhere.
As the Federal Reserve continues its efforts to drive inflation lower this year and next, the ABA Economic Advisory Committee expects stalling economic growth in 2023, followed by a modest recovery in 2024. On the latest episode of the podcast — sponsored by xChange — EAC Chair Simona Mocuta shares the committee’s consensus forecast. The chief economist at State Street Global Advisors also discusses the committee’s 50/50 recession odds for 2023, their surprising forecast for a rate cut by the end of the year (signaling their confidence in the Fed’s ability to bring down inflation), how the economic outlook may affect loan demand and credit quality.
What’s on the horizon for bank innovation and fintech in 2023? In this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by xChange — ABA’s Office of Innovation team explores top tech trends for the year ahead. Among other topics, they discuss the growing role of investment in foundational infrastructure like core processing, how APIs and middleware are helping banks innovate, declining consumer interest in crypto (although digital assets broadly remain an area of focus), what new AI tools like ChatGPT may mean for banking, the importance of digital identity in fraud prevention, and how banks are changing their strategies internally to promote innovation.
“We’re a small bank, and it gets more expensive all the time to run a small community bank,” says Andy Anderson, president and CEO of Bank of Anguilla in Anguilla, Mississippi. “As long as we can do this profitably and remain in our community, that’s what we want to do. [CDFI] designation has helped us tremendously over the last few years to remain here and serve our community.”
In this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by xChange — Anderson discusses why Bank of Anguilla became a community development financial institution. The bank was already doing CDFI work in its rural Mississippi Delta market in two of Mississippi’s poorest countries, and Anderson discusses how certification has helped the bank pursue its mission and remain independent. Awards from the CDFI Fund — such as the Bank Enterprise Award — “have become a valuable source of income for Bank of Anguilla,” Anderson notes.
Anderson will discuss the role of CDFIs, including banks, in advancing economic inclusion at the ABA Conference for Community Bankers, Feb. 12-14 in Orlando.
What’s on the banking industry’s policy radar for 2023? ABA’s Government Relations Council recently met in Washington, D.C., and GRC Chair Cathy Owen joins the podcast — sponsored by xChange — to recap the topics of consideration as the association prepares its banker-led Blueprint for Growth for the coming year. Highlights include driving a healthy and inclusive economy, supporting a dynamic and innovative banking industry and protecting consumers with consistent regulation.
Owen, who is chairman and CEO of State Holding Company in Little Rock, Arkansas, also discusses her own career background in community banking, her message on advocacy, challenges her bank is facing with hiring and talent and what she’s doing to elevate women in leadership in Arkansas’ banking sector.
As the end of the year draws near, banking journalist and analyst Paul Davis joins the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Intrafi Network, to discuss the bank mergers and acquisitions outlook for 2023. Among other topics, Davis discusses:
- Factors driving lower M&A rates in 2022
- Why interest rate trends may make banks more attractive to investors and less attractive for acquisitions by banks
- The trend of investment groups purchasing bank charters
- How depressed valuations in the fintech sector may affect bank M&A and de novo activity
Something old, something new: In 2022, check fraud remains a focus of bank risk professionals, while instant P2P payments are an increasingly popular platform for scammers seeking to take advantage of consumers. With respect to the latter, consumers need to realize that “this stuff behaves like cash,” says Peter Tapling on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Intrafi Network. That immediacy is why these platforms are attractive to both consumers and fraudsters. On this episode, Tapling and ABA’s Paul Benda discuss:
- The persistence of check fraud and check washing scams in 2022.
- How banks are tackling fraud that employs P2P instant payment platforms.
- Liability for transactions authorized by a customer that are later claimed to be fraudulent.
- The importance of consumer education campaigns like #BanksNeverAskThat and “Take Five to Stop Fraud.”
- Controls banks can put in place to limit fraud attempts without slowing down all instant payments across the board.
Tapling and Benda will discuss this topic in greater depth at ABA’s Conference for Community Bankers, Feb. 12-14, 2023, in Orlando.
For U.S. businesses, lagging indicators may be at odds with leading indicators like business sentiment. “The headlines we see in the market can sometimes be inconsistent with what we see on the ground,” says Stephen Philipson, head of commercial products at U.S. Bank. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi Network — Philipson discusses findings from U.S. Bank’s 2022 CFO Insights Report, among them:
- CFOs’ transition from growth mode to risk management mode in 2022.
- How large and middle-market firms are balancing the pressures of inflation and talent recruitment and retention.
- Why corporates are stepping back to re-evaluate the role of environmental factors in ESG activities.
- How banks can design products to address corporates’ concerns on talent, inflation, digital transformation and more.
Banks of all sizes access the innovation ecosystem through in-house development, fintech partnerships, acquisitions and venture investment. Huntington Bank does all four. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by SmartStream — Huntington Bank CFO Zach Wasserman talks about the $100 million Huntington Corporate Ventures initiative to expose the bank to cutting-edge tech and fuel its digital transformation.
In this episode, Wasserman discusses:
- How Huntington decides when to acquire, partner, invest or some combination of the three.
- Business lines where HCV is looking to invest: payments, business banking, wealth and consumer mortgage.
- Details about Huntington’s partnerships with companies like Blend Labs and InvestCloud.
- How banks can provide value to fintech startups as investors and partners.
- What banks can learn about the role of due diligence and risk management in venture investing.
- What’s ahead for Huntington Corporate Ventures, which was launched in 2020 and is now expanding.
Grandparent scams are a particularly pernicious fraud — one that preys on seniors’ love, care and concern for their family members. How can banks recognize these scams and work with law enforcement to protect clients? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by SmartStream— Jackie Blaesi-Freed and Lauren Elfner of the Justice Department’s Consumer Protection Branch discuss:
- DOJ’s expanded Transnational Elder Fraud Strike Force to tackle elder fraud attempts that usually come from overseas.
- Recent DOJ enforcement actions relating to grandparent scams, including sentencing in a racketeering scheme.
- Current trends and typologies in grandparent scams, including how they intersect with impostor scams.
- Red flags for bank employees when they might encounter a grandparent scam in progress.
- SAR filing, relationship-building and other partnerships between banks and law enforcement.
Learn more: Access resources to protect seniors through the ABA Foundation’s Safe Banking for Seniors program.
“Diverse teams who have cohered at a team — this means they’ve done some work — outperform homogenous teams,” says ABA SVP Naomi Mercer. “Diverse teams who haven’t done that work of inclusion underperform homogenous teams.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by SmartStream — Mercer goes beyond diversity to explore how banks and other businesses can apply intersecting practices of diversity, equity andinclusion. Distilling insights from her new book, DEI Foundations, Mercer discusses:
- How to learn from mistakes in DEI practices.
- The importance of moving unconscious biases into the conscious environment where they can better be addressed.
- The usefulness of DEI self-assessments and audits in building DEI strategies.
- How banks of all sizes are seeking to be more diverse, equitable and inclusive.
Learn more:Download a copy of DEI Foundations.
As a leader in selecting and developing potential Chick-fil-A restaurant operators for many years, André Kennebrew conducted around 8,500 talent interviews. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by SmartStream— Kennebrew talks about what he learned about talent from one of America’s fastest-growing and top-rated consumer brands. He also discusses:
- The difference between hiring and selection and why it matters for recruiting Gen Z and millennial talent
- The role of nature and nurture in leadership capability
- His favorite interview questions
- What he learned about leadership and talent from his pre-Chick-fil-A career as a bank executive and administrative pastor
Learn more:Kennebrew will speak on these topics at the ABA Conference for Community Bankers, Feb. 12-14 in Orlando.
Christian Ruppe co-founded a fintech firm when he was in college — and later he brought his experience in-house in the community banking space. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Jack Henry— Ruppe talks about Colony Bank’s strategy to build middleware that will enable more rapid innovation.
“Were not asking people to integrate with this vendor or that vendor,” says Ruppe. “We’re giving them our documentation and asking them to integrate with us.” On the podcast, Ruppe also discusses:
- Why an API-based middleware will help accelerate innovation and product launches.
- The changing role of core platforms in a middleware environment.
- How his experience as a fintech co-founder affects his outlook as a community banker.
- How community banks can build cultures of integrated innovation.
Christian Ruppe co-founded a fintech firm when he was in college — and later he brought his experience in-house in the community banking space. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Jack Henry— Ruppe talks about Colony Bank’s strategy to build middleware that will enable more rapid innovation.
“Were not asking people to integrate with this vendor or that vendor,” says Ruppe. “We’re giving them our documentation and asking them to integrate with us.” On the podcast, Ruppe also discusses:
- Why an API-based middleware will help accelerate innovation and product launches.
- The changing role of core platforms in a middleware environment.
- How his experience as a fintech co-founder affects his outlook as a community banker.
- How community banks can build cultures of integrated innovation.
After a long legislative and regulatory advocacy effort, federal thrifts can finally elect “covered savings association” status, allowing them to exercise national bank powers without having to change their charters, holding companies or cultural identities as savings institutions. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Jack Henry— two experts walk through why eligible federal savings associations may wish to approach this election.
Luse Gorman attorney Larry Spaccasi and ABA SVP Joseph Pigg discuss ABA’s role in winning passage of HOLA flexibility under the S. 2155 regulatory reform law and its more recent advocacy with the Federal Reserve to ensure institutions can benefit from the election at the holding company level, as well as the factors that thrift leaders can consider when deciding to make the election to become a CSA. Spaccasi and Pigg will be joined by a bank CEO to elaborate on these topics in greater detail at ABA’s Annual Convention, Oct. 2-4 in Austin.
After a long legislative and regulatory advocacy effort, federal thrifts can finally elect “covered savings association” status, allowing them to exercise national bank powers without having to change their charters, holding companies or cultural identities as savings institutions. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Jack Henry— two experts walk through why eligible federal savings associations may wish to approach this election.
Luse Gorman attorney Larry Spaccasi and ABA SVP Joseph Pigg discuss ABA’s role in winning passage of HOLA flexibility under the S. 2155 regulatory reform law and its more recent advocacy with the Federal Reserve to ensure institutions can benefit from the election at the holding company level, as well as the factors that thrift leaders can consider when deciding to make the election to become a CSA. Spaccasi and Pigg will be joined by a bank CEO to elaborate on these topics in greater detail at ABA’s Annual Convention, Oct. 2-4 in Austin.
The latest incarnation of ABA’s award-winning #BanksNeverAskThat anti-phishing campaign returns in October. On the season premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Jack Henry— ABA Chair Scott Anderson talks about how Zions Bank has been involved in #BanksNeverAskThat in the past and why Zions is excited about the refreshed campaign for 2022.
Offering a couple sneak previews of the new creative elements, ABA’s Peter Cook also discusses how the campaign has been updated to educate consumers about how to protect themselves from scams using mobile payment apps, as well as the results bankers have seen from #BanksNeverAskThat participation. “I hope banks everywhere will take advantage of #BanksNeverAskThat,” Anderson says.
- Learn more about #BanksNeverAskThat and register.
- If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
This episode is sponsored by Jack Henry.
The latest incarnation of ABA’s award-winning #BanksNeverAskThat anti-phishing campaign returns in October. On the season premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Jack Henry— ABA Chair Scott Anderson talks about how Zions Bank has been involved in #BanksNeverAskThat in the past and why Zions is excited about the refreshed campaign for 2022.
Offering a couple sneak previews of the new creative elements, ABA’s Peter Cook also discusses how the campaign has been updated to educate consumers about how to protect themselves from scams using mobile payment apps, as well as the results bankers have seen from #BanksNeverAskThat participation. “I hope banks everywhere will take advantage of #BanksNeverAskThat,” Anderson says.
- Learn more about #BanksNeverAskThat and register.
- If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
This episode is sponsored by Jack Henry.
CECL has been adopted by many organizations and for many more, the countdown to adoption has begun. But what defines a successful CECL journey? How do you know if results make sense? And what can you use CECL insights for? In our world of economic volatility, these are the questions that keep Risk and Finance executives up at night. In this podcast, we address these question.
Speakers:
Theresa Meawad, Head of Solutions Consulting and Thought Leadership, SS&C EVOLV
Michael L. Gullette, Senior Vice President, Tax and Accounting, ABA
As a former engineer, Jennifer Schmidt brings an understanding of systems and integration to her work as a community bank chief compliance officer. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Apiture— Schmidt discusses the development of an integrated enterprise risk management framework, which encompasses her work overseeing compliance, Bank Secrecy Act oversight, exam management, internal audit oversight and risk assessment facilitation.
This model, developed by Schmidt for her ABA Stonier capstone project, keeps risks owned by the the business leaders but ensures awareness of risk connectivity and collaboration by managers across the bank — in a flexible way that works for an individual bank.
Schmidt also discusses her background as an engineer and consultant before joining the financial services sector to manage acquired bank integrations in a fast-growing organization, as well as her experience as a Stonier student.
After spending more than a quarter century in de novo commercial banks, Dave Hanrahan made a career move to a mutual savings bank, and he hasn’t looked back. On the latest episode of the the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Apiture, Hanrahan talks about the transition to mutual banking as president of Century Savings Bank in Vineland, New Jersey. Hanrahan discusses the key differences and how his bank tackles the traditional challenges mutuals face in capital for growth.
Hanrahan also discusses the commercial real estate market and how bankers can respond to the first rising rate environment in a generation. And as a member of the ABA Foundation board of directors, Hanrahan provides an update on the foundation’s new executive director and the role banks play in community engagement.
After spending more than a quarter century in de novo commercial banks, Dave Hanrahan made a career move to a mutual savings bank, and he hasn’t looked back. On the latest episode of the the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Apiture, Hanrahan talks about the transition to mutual banking as president of Century Savings Bank in Vineland, New Jersey. Hanrahan discusses the key differences and how his bank tackles the traditional challenges mutuals face in capital for growth.
Hanrahan also discusses the commercial real estate market and how bankers can respond to the first rising rate environment in a generation. And as a member of the ABA Foundation board of directors, Hanrahan provides an update on the foundation’s new executive director and the role banks play in community engagement.
Forty-four percent of homes have female breadwinners, and women make up a large and growing share of high earners — but wealth management providers don’t always tailor their advice and services to this reality. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Apiture — Kathleen Burns Kingsbury tackles some misperceptions about women and wealth. In this episode, Kingsbury discusses:
- The scope and scale of female breadwinners and high earners in today’s wealth marketplace.
- How to address unconscious and implicit biases about women and wealth.
- Strategies that wealth advisers can use to build productive relationships with high-earning women.
- The kinds of questions that lead to productive conversations.
- The role of values in women’s wealth decision-making, whether in philanthropy or in socially responsible investing.
Kingsbury will address this topic at ABA’s Annual Convention in Austin on Oct. 2-4. Register before Aug. 1 for early-bird savings.
Cloud migration was a big deal for banks before COVID, but it kicked into a higher gear than ever as the pandemic drove virtual banking, digital workflows and remote work across the industry. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Apiture — Matt Burke, the newly appointed CEO of Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, talks about how his bank and others have tapped into new efficiencies through cloud adoption.
Burke, who succeeded former ABA Chair Dorothy Savarese earlier this year, also discusses his own banking career journey and path through the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking. And with Cape Cod Five’s home base in a coastal region, Burke discusses the bank’s work on climate risk management and mitigation efforts.
In this bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — ABA’s Peter Cook and Melissa Murray discuss the ABA Foundation’s signature recognition program, the Community Commitment Awards. Applications are now open for the 10th annual awards, which recognize and promote extraordinary bank commitment to communities and the innovative, high-impact programs that improve the quality of life for customers and the communities banks serve.
Applications are due July 1, and banks may enter in any or all of the following categories:
- Affordable housing
- Community and economic development
- Financial education
- Economic inclusion
- Protecting older Americans
- Supporting military families
- Volunteerism
- The George Bailey Award (for non-CEO bank employees who demonstrate outstanding service to their bank, industry and community)
The cookies may be pre-packaged in plastic, but human touch remains essential to community banking. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — 1st Security Bank EVP Kelli Nielsen discusses how the retail banking customer experience is changing in the post-COVID era and why in-branch activity remains important. Nielsen also talks about her bank’s approach to talent management in a tight labor market and — as an ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking alumna and advisory board member — discusses the Women of Stonier initiative.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recently referred to a “soft-ish landing” as a potential outcome for monetary policy as the Fed raises rates to cut inflation. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — ABA Economic Advisory Committee Chair Richard DeKaser offers the EAC’s consensus forecast that the Fed will indeed stick the landing, reducing inflation gradually without harming employment or causing a recession.
DeKaser, who is also chief corporate economist at Wells Fargo, also discusses the EAC’s outlook for the housing market, job openings and the labor force, and credit quality.
In an environment of hiring challenges, cost inflation, supply chain woes and post-pandemic recovery, small business owners are busier than ever. “Sometimes small business owners don’t even have time to spend with their families,” says KeyBank SVP Kristyn Squires. “So when we spend time with them, it needs to be compelling.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — Squires, the national small business sales leader for the Cleveland-based regional bank, discusses how KeyBank uses a quick digital check-in tool to help clients communicate needs, goals and challenges and how tools like this help the bank improve and advance its relationship banking model.
In a special bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — ABA SVP Rob Morgan digs into the association’s comments on the Federal Reserve’s discussion paper on central bank digital currencies. With ABA estimating that the Fed’s hypothetical CBDC design could put 71% of banks’ funding at risk, Morgan discusses:
- Why a CBDC would not achieve the financial inclusion, efficiency and international competitiveness goals its advocates claim
- The substantial downsides a CBDC could pose to banks, consumers and the U.S. economy
- The path forward for a CBDC in Congress and at the Federal Reserve.
From Butch Cassidy to Bonnie and Clyde, bank robbers have always had a pop culture mystique. But bank robberies are no Hollywood storyline for bank employees and customers, whose safety and even lives are put at risk when a robber holds up a bank branch. But before the advent of the FBI and robust state police forces, bank robberies were often left to sometimes poorly equipped local law enforcement. In Indiana in the 1920s, bankers took the protection of their banks into their own hands. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — the Indiana Bankers Association’s Josh Myers discusses:
- The challenge robberies posed to banks in the 1920s.
- How the IBA provided weapons to bank employees, plus training in how to use them safely.
- The partnership the “Indiana vigilantes” and law enforcement.
- Stories and anecdotes from this unusual chapter in banking history.
Public comments for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s sweeping climate risk disclosure proposal are due on June 17 — with major implications for banks and their clients. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — ABA experts Mike Gullette and Joe Pigg discuss: * The contours of the proposed disclosures and how they would work. * Implications for non-public companies, including privately owned banks not registered with the SEC. * Safe harbors proposed within the disclosures. * The need to avoid unintended consequences from an emerging area of risk practice, particularly when applied to prudential supervision. * The potential need for sophisticated modeling and expert consulting services to comply and the need for scalability for smaller SEC registrants.
A comment letter writing guide to help bankers write their own comments will be available on aba.com in the coming days.
After 22 years at ABA, the association’s top lobbyist James Ballentine will soon retire. In this special episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — Ballentine reflects on lessons learned during his career in Washington and shares tips both on effective banking advocacy and on promoting diversity and inclusion in banking. Among other topics, Ballentine talks about:
- The state of current bank policy issues in Congress like the SAFE Banking Act and ECORA.
- Behind-the-scenes stories on legislation like Dodd-Frank and S. 2155.
- How a legislative loss on a credit union bill 25 years ago galvanized the banking industry to ramp up its advocacy.
- Why it’s critical for emerging bank leaders to share their perspectives and experiences with lawmakers.
- How his experience as a former Small Business Administration staffer helped the industry navigate the Paycheck Protection Program.
- His work as a diversity, equity and inclusion leader both in Washington and in the industry.
It’s National Financial Literacy Month, but on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — Matthew Hennessey digs into the literacy that undergirds financial literacy: the basics of economic decision-making, from prices and markets to preferences and specialization. “The main lesson at the heart of economics is that life is about tradeoffs and that economics is about choice,” Hennessey says. “When we make a choice, it almost always means we’re giving something up that we value.” In the newly released book Visible Hand, Hennessey — deputy op-ed editor at the Wall Street Journal — illuminates these concepts in a self-described “avuncular” style designed to help average Americans understand how they make economic decisions every day and to appreciate the free enterprise system that lays atop those decisions.
This episode is sponsored by IntraFi Network.
Often described as “charitable savings accounts” or “charitable checkbooks,” donor-advised funds are one of the fastest-growing charitable vehicles. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — ABA’s Evan Sparks talks about how banks of all sizes are building DAFs into their wealth management strategies. In this episode, he discusses:
- The nuts and bolts of how DAFs work
- How DAFs complement other bank business lines, including wealth management, consumer banking and business banking
- Why community banks have found that DAFs help keep charitable assets local
- How the DAF concept originated with the banking industry a century ago
This episode is sponsored by IntraFi Network. Read Sparks’ ABA Banking Journal article on DAFs.
While many larger banks have created “chief diversity officer” roles over the past several years, that role has been more of a rarity at smaller banks. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — Nicole Almeida, CFMP, talks about how her career has taken her from from retail stores to bank branches to bank marketing and, most recently, to a new role as chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer for BayCoast Bank.
“It really needs dedication,” Almeida says, noting that the DEI goals of the $2.5 billion Massachusetts mutual bank required more than a cross-departmental committee but rather the focused attention of full-time bank professionals. Almeida discusses how her role as a community bank CDO facilitates DEI partnerships and initiatives both within and outside of the bank. She shares advice for individuals transitioning into community bank CDO jobs and talks about BayCoast’s pilot program to boost diverse talent through a three-year bachelor’s program that provides a full scholarship and part-time bank job.
Almeida also talks about how her former role as chief marketing officer paved the way for her to serve as CDO. “As marketers, you touch every aspect of the organization,” she says. “It’s that empathy and personality behind marketing that transitions really well and allows you to communicate well with everyone.”
- Read more about Almeida’s bank career in ABA Bank Marketing.
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, western governments have imposed unprecedented financial sanctions on individuals, businesses, banks and governments in Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. With new sanctions continuing to be announced and a rolling series of compliance deadlines, the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — features ABA VP Rob Rowe for a discussion of:
- The overall view of sanctions and what banks should be anticipating in the near future.
- How banks of all sizes, including small banks, can have exposure to sanctionable transactions.
- The role of software — and regular updates to it — as well as correspondent banking relationships in facilitating sanctions compliance.
- Red flags for sanctions evasion bankers should watch out for.
This episode is sponsored by IntraFi Network.
- View ABA’s regularly updated resource page on the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
At a community bank with limited staff and resources, tech transformation is all about setting priorities. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by IntraFi Network, Old Point National Bank CTO Pinkaj Klokkenga discusses how she is setting and advancing these priorities at her Hampton Roads area community bank. In the episode, Klokkenga discusses:
- Her experience in IT and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond before joining a community bank.
- Early IT wins for Old Point National Bank in the COVID era, including online scheduling, ATM upgrades to be ITM-compatible and revamping online account opening.
- How to identify the tech skillsets a community bank needs and rely on vendors for support.
- How to balance responsibility for client solutions with the lines of business.
- In a job-seeker’s market, the importance of offering top IT talent a range of engaging and creative work opportunities.
For nearly 200 years, Millbury National Bank has stayed independent as a commercially focused community bank in Massachusetts. Part of that independent tradition owes to the bank’s history of multigenerational stewardship, says President and CEO Kate Marcum on the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by IntraFi Network. Six of the bank’s seven directors are at least the second generation in their family to serve on the bank’s board, and five are third- or fourth-generation directors.
The bank also has a long-tenured staff, and Chief Operating Officer John Latino discusses how investment in leadership development and employee experience helps the bank succeed, which in tern protects its mission and independence and thus “completes the circle.”
This episode is sponsored by IntraFi Network.
Even the best-intentioned policies often face implementation challenges when they meet the real world. For example, the Ohio legislature required banks to use a pooled asset system for collateral for public funds — “in theory, a great idea” that protects public funds, says Ohio bank CEO Mike Vynalek. However, large public-sector deposits made just before banks closed would leave banks without time to buy securities and thus unintentionally undercollateralized. “It was a timing issue,” Vynalek says, and the Ohio Bankers League successfully advocated for an amendment that created a simple two-day cure provision.
It’s just one example of the tangible results of banker advocacy. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by IntraFi Network — Vynalek, who also chairs the Ohio Bankers League, discusses his own journey in community bank advocacy and how he’s getting emerging leaders at his bank involved in advocacy. He also discusses important policy topics on his radar screen, including a regulatory level playing field, credit union taxation and the cost of regulatory compliance. Vynalek also discusses the importance of participating in events like the upcoming ABA Washington Summit.
This episode is sponsored by IntraFi Network.
During the CoreConnection session at ABA’s Conference for Community Bankers, core provider CEOs sounded notes that will sound familiar to those following the work of ABA’s Core Platforms Committee: open APIs, access to data and flexible and transparent contracts. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Core Platforms Committee Vice Chair Kim Kirk recaps insights that bankers should take away from CoreConnection and discusses what’s ahead for the committee, including the committee’s in-progress work on core conversions. Kirk also discusses the tech transformation work she is leading at Queensborough National Bank and Trust in Georgia and her career path to being a tech and operations leader in community banking.
- Watch the CoreConnection sessions.
Amid persistent inflation and supply chain kinks, small businesses are finding more and more that “cash is king” — especially as their suppliers are likelier to ask for cash up front. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Mike Keim of Univest Bank and Trust discusses how banks can help meet their business clients’ needs for liquidity through treasury management solutions and how real-time payments can help speed up businesses’ billing processes.
As Jelena McWilliams prepares to leave office after an eventful three and a half years as FDIC chairman, she sat down with the ABA Banking Journal for a conversation on her tenure at the agency. While 2018 wasn’t that long ago, it feels worlds away—in terms of the time-is-a-flat-circle nature of the pandemic, but also in the landscape of bank innovation and racial justice.
In the final part of this two-part interview, McWilliams discusses several policy aspects of her tenure, including:
- Why she abstained from the FSOC vote to issue its report on climate change — and why financial regulators should factor the impact of climate risk supervision on employment into their frameworks.
- How climate risk supervision might affect the safety and soundness of community banks in energy-intensive regions.
- Why she chose not to finalize the OCC’s Community Reinvestment Act rule and why it’s important for regulators to work together on a consensus basis.
- Her hopes for the future of the FDIC’s new Mission-Driven Bank Fund, a project two years in the making to support minority depository institutions and community development financial institutions.
- How the FDIC’s small-dollar loan statement helps address financial inclusion challenges.
As Jelena McWilliams prepares to leave office after an eventful three and a half years as FDIC chairman, she sat down with the ABA Banking Journal for a conversation on her tenure at the agency. While 2018 wasn’t that long ago, it feels worlds away—in terms of the time-is-a-flat-circle nature of the pandemic, but also in the landscape of bank innovation and racial justice. In part one of this two-part interview, McWilliams discusses:
- Where bank innovation stands in 2022 and how initiatives like FDITech are shaping the policy framework for innovation.
- Early results from FDITech initiatives around real-time data reporting and third-party due diligence.
- The agency's progress on standing up a standard-setting organization that can streamline vendor risk management and “challeng[e] core processors” to be more agile.
- The future of remote versus on-site FDIC exams in the post-COVID environment.
- A behind-the-scenes look at how the FDIC responded to the early days of the pandemic, including issuing guidance on troubled debt restructurings.
Inflation surprises and labor market tightening necessitate an appropriate response from the Federal Reserve, says Ellen Zentner — chief U.S. economist for Morgan Stanley — in the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. With the ABA’s Economic Advisory Committee’s consensus forecast including three quarter-point rate hikes in 2022, the committee expects inflation to moderate but remain persistently high throughout the year.
In addition to inflation and the path of monetary policy, Zentner also discusses:
- Supply chain constraints and their effects on consumer prices and demand.
- Housing market trends as Generation Z enters its homebuying years.
- The role of potential future COVID mitigation measures.
Middle-market businesses are raring for growth in 2022, and four in 10 expect their credit needs to increase this year, which according to economist Jim Glassman of JPMorgan Chase on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast will lead to a surge in commercial and industrial lending. “These challenges we are all focused on are all symptoms of a vigorous recovery from the pandemic nightmare,” says Glassman. “Businesses would much rather deal with these challenges than the kinds of things they were dealing with a year ago.”
Glassman discusses other findings from the JPMC Business Leaders Outlook survey, including:
- How middle market businesses are using automation and efficiencies to free up resources to respond to present challenges, including staff shortages and supply chain kinks.
- Why eight in 10 businesses have returned to — or surpassed — their pre-pandemic category.
- Low-hanging fruit for banks in the form of low takeup rates on mobile banking, cashless payments and online bill pay in the middle market.
What’s on the community bank roadmap for digital process improvement in 2022? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Chris Bailey lifts the curtain on his bank’s investments in digital signature management, conversational capabilities and client business optimization.
As SVP and CTO at First Bank in Carmi, Illinois, Bailey discusses how his bank plans to build on its Paycheck Protection Program successes by ramping up investments in “better digital tools for our business clients,” including loan applications, document management and better conversational abilities. And for clients who still like to do business face-to-face — as is the case with many of First Bank’s ag customers in the rural southern Illinois marketplace — First Bank will continue developing dashboards to help them with financial management.
Bailey also discusses how First Bank is educating its own employees about advancements in digital banking and building a culture that drives innovation internally.
5… 4… 3… 2… 1… The banking industry is in the final New Year’s Eve countdown to the cessation of two U.S. dollar Libor tenors, with the remainder set to cease in 2023. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ServiceLink — ABA’s Hu Benton provides a status update on the Libor transition and what bankers need to know. Among other topics, he discusses:
- Where banks are in their rate transition processes
- The latest statements and expectations from regulators
- Libor alternatives banks are using or exploring, including SOFR, BSBY and Ameribor
- Policy remedies for so-called “tough legacy” contracts — Libor-referencing contracts that mature after cessation but that cannot be modified to include fallback language
With the pandemic and other factors triggering growth in — and new dimensions of — “money mule” scams, how what should bankers watch out for? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ServiceLink — two bank fraud and AML professionals share trends they’re seeing, including:
- Why money mules are increasingly seeking to open business accounts to move illicit cash
- The growing intersection of money mule scams and online romance scams
- How money mule victims, once informed by the bank that they’re likely involved in scam, move from unwitting participants to witting accomplices
- The increase in cryptocurrency angles on money mule scams
- Red flags that frontline bank staff should be on the lookout for
- How money mule fraudsters perpetuate multiple cycles of fraud with the same victims through “recovery scams”
View the ABA Foundation/FTC infographic on money mule scams.
The digital banking product changes triggered by the Paycheck Protection Program and pandemic-related digital banking needs have pushed banks to innovate like never before, says Accenture’s Bina Rajput. “It’s pushed a lot of these institutions to say ‘What’s next? How can I make this process better, and better, and better?”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ServiceLink — Rajput and ABA’s Brooke Ybarra discuss the state of digital lending in 2021, including:
- Post-pandemic trends in digital lending
- The leap ahead in digitization of business lending
- A market map of banks, vendors and fintech firms in the digital lending space
- The growth of embedded finance options like buy-now-pay-later
- Policy obstacles that banks face in as they grow digital lending
How is the trust services sector positioning itself to serve the next generation of wealth clients? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ServiceLink — Franckline Casimir-Benoit discusses trends trust professionals are navigating, including complex tax changes, state law trends, growing investor demand for ESG investment options and how trust services are embedded in today’s banking industry. As chair of the Certifed Trust and Fiduciary Advisor advisory board and a nearly three-decade veteran of the trust sector, Casimir-Benoit also talks about what trust professionals can do to advance their skills and stay current with industry trends.
The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — continues a pre-Thanksgiving tradition by interviewing the winners of ABA’s 2021 Community Commitment Awards. Each interview explores the winning program or initiative at each bank and provides insights on how they might be implemented or adapted at other banks. These stories present the perfect inspiration as we prepare for the season of thanks and giving.
The full episode presents excerpts from each interview. To listen to the full conversation with each Community Commitment Award winner, click on the links below.
- Affordable housing: Alex Pace, VP and commercial relationship manager, Heritage Bank, Seattle.
- Community and economic development: LaReta Lowther, SVP and director of community development, and Jayme Payton, VP for program management, WesBanco Bank, Wheeling, West Virginia.
- Economic inclusion: Ashley Aubrey Harrison, community affairs and CRA manager and CRA officer, Hancock Whitney, Gulfport, Mississippi.
- Financial education: Jen Houston, former SVP and community relations manager, UMB Financial, Kansas City, Missouri.
- Protecting older Americans: Jennell Huff, relationship executive and community relations coordinator, Bank of the Rockies, Clyde Park, Montana.
- George Bailey Distinguished Service Award: Mary O’Connor, EVP for logistics and creative brand management, Country Club Bank, Kansas City, Missouri
If you can’t see the player above, click here to listen to this episode.
This episode is sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions.
With bank M&A in 2021 catching up after a pandemic-induced pause, aggregate deal value in 2022 could near $60 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence analyst Nathan Stovall. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — Stovall discusses his outlook and certain contributing factors, including:
- The role of regional banks and mergers of equals in the M&A landscape.
- The continuing push for technological scale.
- New calculations banks are making about branch density when planning acquisitions.
- Potential regulatory roadblocks in the future for certain deals.
- The growing role of credit unions in buying whole community banks.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast -- sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions -- ABA's Paul Benda and Jonathan Thessin break down the just-released emergency temporary standard issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that requires employers with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccination or weekly testing for their employees. Benda and Thessin discuss potential exemptions from the ETS, the possibility of court challenges and how those may intersect with the compliance deadlines covered employers will face.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — meet newly elected ABA Chair Scott Anderson. On the podcast, Anderson discusses his goals for ABA during his chairmanship and his perspective on being “creatively entrepreneurial” as a banker.
“I think banking is really an innovative and creative business,” Anderson says, discussing creativity’s connection with Zions Bank’s extensive collection of Utah-inspired art. “You’re trying to push the envelope. You’re trying to come up with something new—whether it’s a painting or a checking account or a home equity line of credit.”
Anderson also talks about how he stays engaged in so many community organizations (serving on 19 boards) and how he builds effective and productive long-term relationships with policymakers.
- Read the ABA Banking Journal profile of Anderson.
- View a video introducing Anderson.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — Wells Fargo Chief Corporate Economist Richard DeKaser digs into the inflation forecast. With the Consumer Price Index rising 5.4% year-on-year in September, questions continue to simmer about how persistent and long-lasting inflation will be.
DeKaser explains his view the increase in prices as a function of product and labor shortages — from supply chain kinks to child care gaps — driven by the ongoing fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic that should wane, but he acknowledges that the inflation forecast is one of the most hotly debated topics on the ABA Economic Advisory Committee — which he chairs — and outlines the arguments made by those more concerned about long-lasting inflation.
DeKaser also discusses the economic growth trajectory, credit quality conditions and how global conditions may affect the U.S. economic outlook.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — Citizens Bank of Edmond CEO Jill Castilla talks about the effects the Biden administration’s controversial proposal for a financial account reporting regime would have on a bank like hers, with $310 million in assets and 55 employees. She talks about the challenge of implementing a system like this alongside current anti-money laundering reporting and 1099 filing at a community bank.
Castilla also discusses why she started speaking out about the proposal, which would entail bank reporting to the IRS of gross annual inflows and outflows in financial accounts over a de minimis threshold of $600. Hearing directly from Citizens Bank customers worried about their financial privacy and about the elevated risk of audits over normal transactions motivated Castilla to press the issue.
With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicating that congressional leaders still plan to include some version of this reporting regime in the social spending bill — which continues to be negotiated on Capitol Hill — ABA continues urging bankers to take action and educate their customers about the proposal.
- Take action and find customer resources at SecureAmericanOpportunity.com.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — ABA VP Jonathan Thessin covers what banks need to know about the Biden administration’s COVID-19 action plan, which includes new employer-level vaccination mandates and testing requirements for employees not vaccinated against COVID. Among other topics, Thessin discusses:
- The scope of the “emergency temporary standard” to be issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that would require employers with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccination or weekly testing for their employees.
- The potential for legal challenges that may prevent the ETS from being implemented.
- Under which conditions banks may be classified as federal contractors subject to a separate employee-vaccination mandate.
- Steps banks can take now to make implementation easier once the ETS is officially issued.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.Additional resources:
- Staff analysis of Biden administration COVID action plan (updated Oct. 5, 2021)
- FAQ on bank-related impacts of COVID action plan (updated Oct. 5, 2021)
On the latest episode the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence — Berkshire Bank President and CEO Nitin Mhatre discusss Berkshire Bank’s “BEST Community Comeback,” a new $5 billion ESG-focused initiative at the Massachusetts-based midsize community bank. “We may not have called it ESG or DEI-type initiatives in the past, but we’ve always done it,” says Mhatre. “It’s really just taking the things we’ve done in the past and translating that into what makes an impact.” Among other topics, Mhatre discusses:
- Berkshire’s goal of 200,000 “socially responsible” accounts, including Bank On-certified accounts.
- Why Berkshire no longer finances fossil fuel production, and how it will make future decisions about financing downstream energy businesses and other sectors affected by climate change.
- How investors have responded to Berkshire’s ESG-related activities.
- The perspective Mhatre brought to Berkshire after a career at larger institutions like Citi and Webster Bank.
This episode is sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The fight on Capitol Hill over the Biden administration’s controversial tax proposal is likely to go on for another four to six weeks, and the proposal may continue to be raised after that, according to ABA EVP James Ballentine. On the latest episode the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence — Ballentine joins ABA’s Rob Nichols and John Kinsella to dig into the details of the proposal and its legislative outlook.
Ballentine, Nichols and Kinsella dig into the details of the proposal, including privacy concerns and operational challenges banks would face; examine the impact of the proposal on the unbanked rate; outline the current state of play on Capitol Hill and the near-term outlook; and discuss what bankers and their clients can do take action.
- Take action and find customer resources at SecureAmericanOpportunity.com.
This episode is sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The award-winning #BanksNeverAskThat anti-phishing consumer education campaign is back with refreshed content for 2021. On the latest episode the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence — bank marketer Megan Kenley discusses Bank of Utah’s #BanksNeverAskThat experience, some of the results seen from participating (including helping a customer recognize and stop a money mule scam) and how Bank of Utah will adapt the campaign materials for its 2021 participation.
This episode is sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Banks of all sizes are hearing from many customers that they want exposure to the fast-growing but volatile cryptocurrency market. Vast Bank — a community institution in Tulsa, Oklahoma — recently became the first nationally chartered, FDIC-insured bank to offer crypto banking, a product that allows customers to buy, sell and hold virtual currencies through the bank’s user interface. On the season four premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence — President and CEO Brad Scrivner discusses:
- The mechanism of crypto banking at Vast Bank, including its partnership with Coinbase.
- The behind-the-scenes process that allows Vast Bank to securely custody crypto assets.
- The process of working with regulators on the product, particularly after an OCC interpretive letter on digital asset custody.
- Why many crypto early adopters have sought out a bank to support their coin trading and holding.
- How crypto banking grew out of Vast Bank’s transition to a cloud-based core and investment in digital transformation.
This episode is sponsored by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
In this bonus episode from the ABA Pandemic Update podcast, ABA SVP Paul Benda breaks down the science behind the Delta variant's hyper-infectious nature—and how things keep getting worse and are likely to get worse before getting better. Benda reviews vaccine effectiveness with Delta; the breakthrough Provincetown, Massachusetts, cluster; and how to mitigate the risk of getting infected. Subscribe to the ABA Pandemic Update wherever you get your podcasts.
As small and middle market businesses seek to capitalize on a post-COVID bounceback, new survey research from Umpqua Bank shows that the business outlook is positive as firms have made substantial changes to respond to COVID. On the final episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast’s fourth season, Umpqua Bank EVP Richard Cabrera joins to discuss the survey findings and how banks can respond to changing needs of small and middle market firms.
Among other things, Cabrera discusses:
- The growth in inventory financing needs as businesses have restocked and sought to build bigger inventories to avoid supply chain challenges.
- Why middle market firms are more likely than smaller businesses to have made changes in response to the pandemic.
- The role of supply chain woes in inflation — and why wage increases might contribute to more persistent inflation rates.
- How Umpqua Bank has pivoted to meet the changing post-COVID needs of commercial clients.
From its origins as one of the original “mobile banks” in the 1990s — designed to serve truckers across the country through a network of truck stops — TAB Bank has evolved into an innovative digital bank serving businesses across sectors and around the country. “A lot of things you hear today are the original problems TAB Bank set out to solve for truck drivers,” says President and CEO Curt Queyrouze. “Like we saw with the pandemic, that was absolutely true when you couldn’t walk into a branch. Some of us have been working on that for a long time.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Queyrouze discusses:
- Lessons from serving the unique transportation sector for providing innovative financial services in other sectors.
- Applying community banking concepts to a nationwide digital small business market.
- How TAB Bank builds a workplace culture to promote innovation.
- His vision for building technology that helps “banking move to the background” of consumers’ daily lives.
-
The role of partnerships like Alloy Labs Alliance in helping TAB Bank leaders pool resources for innovation and think creatively.
-
Listen to a bonus clip with Queyrouze on Utah as a hotbed of financial innovation.
The Bank On movement for financial inclusion continues to accelerate. In July, the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund—which developed the Bank On standards and which certifies deposit accounts that meet them—announced that more than 100 depository institutions now offer Bank On-certified accounts.
The number has nearly doubled since October 2020, when, at ABA’s Annual Convention, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols encouraged all banks to offer a certified account. But while Bank On accounts are available in every state and 99 of the nation’s largest 100 metro areas, a list of 100 institutions still leaves lots of opportunity to expand Bank On participation, especially among the nation’s midsize and community banks.
With that in mind, what is the certification process like for banks? And what’s motivating bank leaders to join the Bank On movement? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, leaders from three banks representing different asset sizes share their perspectives on going through the Bank On certification process as well as providing tips for bankers contemplating their next steps with Bank On.
It’s summer cycling season, and the Tour de France is in full swing. Barry Allen of Tower Community Bank joins the ABA Banking Journal Podcast to talk about biking adventures closer to home. Tower Community Bank leaders organize their own informal cycling team with other members of their southeast Tennessee community. Allen discusses the bank’s support for projects like mountain bike trails in Monteagle and Chattanooga, Tennessee, as well as sponsoring races like Gran Fondo Hincapie and the River Gorge Omnium.
“We enjoy the lifestyle around cycling and the seeing the country that cycling affords us,” says Allen. “Indirectly, it’s helped us with business,” he adds, noting that many of the other riders who join the informal team result in business referrals for the bank.
And with the cost of bicycles continuing to grow, Tower Community Bank also makes unsecured personal loans for bikes, and Allen discusses what goes into making a bike loan.
More and more Americans are embracing health savings accounts, especially younger and middle-aged adults. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Finastra — Eric Remjeske of Devenir Research and Kevin McKechnie of the ABA HSA Council discuss new research findings showing that 63 million Americans are now covered by an HSA, with total assets over $82 billion, and that Americans in their 30s are disproportionately likely to be HSA account-holders.
On the podcast, Remjeske and McKechnie discuss further details from the research — including why HSAs are popular in states like Utah and Alaska but less so in Hawaii and Mississippi — as well as the latest policy and industry trends with HSAs.
The post-COVID economy is snapping back in a big way — and banks are ready to help entrepreneurs get back in the game. In the second of a two-part ABA Banking Journal Podcast series on the condition of small businesses post-COVID — sponsored by Finastra — banking leaders from around the country weigh in on ways that banks can partner with small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs, whether through marketing support, incubators, venture investment, SBA lending, technology support and more. Bankers also discuss their efforts to ensure equitable access to PPP funds, commercial credit and advice for all small businesses.
The post-COVID economy is snapping back in a big way — but are small businesses prepared to capitalize on the recovery? In the first of a two-part ABA Banking Journal Podcast series on the condition of small businesses post-COVID — sponsored by Finastra — banking leaders from around the country weigh in on how small businesses performed through the pandemic, how many businesses actually closed permanently (and why) and what the outlook looks like for small businesses now.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Finastra — ABA’s Rob Morgan and Matthew Daigler join to provide quick-fire updates on a variety of fintech-related policy issues. In this episode, they discuss:
- The growth and interest of nonbanks in banking activities and novel bank charters.
- Regulatory activity around financial institutions’ use of artificial intelligence.
- The rising concept of central bank digital currencies, both around the world and at the Federal Reserve.
- Banks’ increasing involvement in digital assets and cryptocurrencies.
Economics may be the so-called dismal science, but the latest forecast of ABA’s Economic Advisory Committee — with GDP growth projected at 7.1% for 2021 and 3.2% in 2022 — is anything but. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Finastra — EAC Chair and TD Bank Group Chief Economist Beata Caranci discusses the committee’s forecast. Among other topics, Caranci explores:
- Projections of inflation to exceed the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
- The role of consumer savings in driving the recovery.
- How long the EAC expects it to take to return to full employment, and why many people over 55 are dropping out of the labor force.
- Why economists are seeing a much faster snap-back in business investment than expected and a post-pandemic uptick in entrepreneurship.
- How changes in supply chain management, such as onshoring, may effect growth and investment.
This episode is sponsored by Finastra.
Nicole Kitowski started her career at Associated Bank as a teller in high school. Nearly three decades later, she brings that experience on the front lines to her role as Associated’s chief risk officer. “If you’ve never faced a customer, you have the risk of making the best possible risk and compliance decisions without understanding the unintended consequences from a customer perspective.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Risk Proof, a PwC product — Nicole Kitowski, chief risk officer at Associated Bank, also discusses how technology is shaping the practice of risk management, top fraud trends she’s seeing in 2021, the pursuit of efficiency in risk management and other topics.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Risk Proof, a PwC product — Brian Miller, the Treasury Department special inspector general for pandemic relief, joins Venable’s Michael Bresnick for a conversation about the effectiveness of COVID relief programs and investigations into fraud involving these programs.
Miller discusses pandemic relief fraud trends and how banks can work with SIGPR, and he provides an overview of SIGPR’s audit and investigatory work (which covers programs established by Title IV of the CARES Act, including the Main Street Lending Program but not the Paycheck Protection Program).
This episode is sponsored by Risk Proof, a PwC product.
Consumer prices for April showed a 4.2% year-on-year increase today, outpacing analysts’ expectations. What does rising inflation mean for the path of the economy in 2021? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Risk Proof, a PwC product — ABA Economic Research Specialist Hugo Dante goes beyond the headlines with inflation figures.
Among other issues, Dante discusses:
- The extent to which inflation figures are due to “base effects” driven by the economic shock during the spring of 2020.
- The unusual transitory nature of consumer demand in the wake of pandemic-related closures and supply chain disruptions.
- How post-pandemic employment trends are affecting the inflation outlook.
- The Fed’s pre-COVID-19 willingness to let inflation run moderately over its 2% target to reflect periods when it ran under the target.
This episode is sponsored by Risk Proof, a PwC product.
- Read Dante’s Banking Journal article “Should We Be Worried about Inflation?“
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Risk Proof, a PwC product — architecture critics Catesby Leigh and Anthony Paletta debate and illuminate two great traditions in U.S. bank design: classicism and modernism.
Based on their recent essays for the ABA Banking Journal, Leigh and Paletta explore how U.S. bank architecture developed over the past two centuries, why classical motifs became so dominant (to the extent that the portico of a Greco-Roman temple is the visual shorthand for banking) and how banks made the transition from classicism to modernism in the 20th century.
Leigh and Paletta also evaluate the future of bank branch architecture in an era when an image search for “bank” results in a sea of smartphone pictures. Meanwhile, in a bonus clip, they discuss the role of bankers as architectural patrons.
This episode is sponsored by Risk Proof, a PwC product.
“The recovery’s coming faster than we thought it was going to” is Don McCree’s positive assessment of the post-COVID economic recovery. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Infinidat, the head of commercial banking at regional bank Citizens discusses how the support provided to businesses combined with pent-up consumer demand has business poised to roar back.
“We’re seeing our pioelines grow, we’re seeing high levels of liquidity in our clients, we’re seeing demand come back in terms of services, we’re seeing a surge in M&A,” says McCree. “It’s quite encouraging from where we sit today.”
McCree discusses two key challenges businesses are facing amid the recovery, including hiring when workers are awash with stimulus money and ongoing pandemic-related supply chain disruptions. He also talks about how Citizens worked with businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, including through the Paycheck Protection Program; M&A trends among businesses; how Citizens is managing credit risk in the recovery phase; and how the bank is adapting its own commercial banking practice in the wake of the pandemic.
In a podcast crossover event sponsored by Infinidat, we present the latest episode of the ABA Pandemic Update. ABA’s Paul Benda provides the latest on COVID-19 cases and vaccination rates, noting that the vaccination of older Americans has reduced COVID deaths even as cases have risen in certain parts of the country. He also discusses a new coronavirus variant, the likelihood of resuming doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine soon and how to minimize risk of infection during air travel.
Culture is important for every bank, but never more so than when employees are remote amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Infinidat — Norway Savings Bank Chairwoman and CEO Pat Weigel discusses how the bank’s employees build its “high-achievement, high-support” culture through “culture crews” that focus on leadership development, efficiency, DEI, remote work and other issues.
“The employees in the bank are really the ones who are building the culture,” says Weigel, who will retire at the end of 2021 as CEO of the Maine-based mutual bank. It doesn’t live with me.”
Weigel also talks about how Norway Savings Bank focuses on DEI in its local context (including engaging the immigrants arriving in Maine), has pursued gender balance in its management team and how its mutual form of ownership contributes to its culture.
The trials of the past year, from COVID-19 to the racial justice protests, required herculean efforts on the part of bank employees to meet their clients’ needs — and they have taken a toll on many bankers. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Infinidat — Jennifer Young, head of human resources for TD Bank and TD Securities, discusses her bank’s “full well-being approach” to supporting employees.
Young discusses how TD focused on health and wellness beyond face coverings and hand sanitizer:
- Providing the right tech to employees working from home and navigating caregiving requirements.
- Protecting shifts and pay in “stores” (as TD calls its branches).
- Training people managers to address employees’ needs and display greater empathy.
- Deploying “wellness coaches” to ease people managers’ burdens.
- Focusing on mental health and providing additional resources for employees who needed them.
When the coronavirus pandemic began, Craft Bank was just about to begin its capital raise as a de novo community bank in Atlanta. With its roadshow about to begin, CEO Ross Mynatt and his small team threw out the playbook and began pivoting. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Infinidat — Mynatt talks about how Craft Bank handled the early months of COVID-19 and opened its doors later in 2020.
Mynatt also discusses the bank’s vision for personalized commercial banking services, the ongoing relevance and market strength of community banks in urban areas and building corporate culture at a de novo in a remote work environment.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA Senior Counsel Shaun Kern discusses the OCC’s recent proposal to revise its rules on permissible bank premises for national banks and federal thrifts, as well as ABA’s call for the agency to withdraw the proposal. During the conversation, Kern discusses:
- How the proposed approach might arbitrarily limit banks’ ability to plan for their present and future space needs.
- How the proposal could make it harder for banks to reorganize their spaces to accommodate employees and customers safely to address concerns over COVID-19 amid a rapidly changing commercial real estate landscape.
- The proposal’s lack of provision for bank customers in its calculation of space use.
- Why the proposal’s grandfathering provision would likely not provide the desired relief.
Additional resources: * ABA comment letter on bank premises. * ABA/BPI/ICBA comment letter on bank premises.
In a new weekly podcast series, ABA SVP Paul Benda will provide a 10-minute situation briefing for bankers on COVID-19. Benda will cover coronavirus case rates, emerging strains, vaccination levels, issues related to banks’ return to normal operations, OSHA requirements and other considerations for banking industry professionals.
Bankers can find Benda’s briefings each week in ABA Daily Newsbytes, as well as at aba.com/podcast. Listeners can also subscribe using major podcast apps and platforms by searching for ABA Pandemic Update.
Enjoy a sneak preview of the first episode of ABA Pandemic Update here.
In this episode, podcast co-hosts Evan Sparks and Monica C. Meinert review highlights from the ABA’s just-concluded virtual Washington Summit, including:
- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) on a level regulatory playing field for banks and nonbanks
- Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on the concept of postal banking
- Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) on her approach to overseeing diversity and inclusion in the financial system
- Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on the importance of bipartisanship and minority rights in the Senate
- White House Director of Public Engagement Cedric Richmond on the role of banks in helping process economic impact payments and other direct payments in the American Rescue Plan
- FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams on the agency’s approach to winding down coronavirus-related regulatory accommodations
If you missed the Summit, tune in for insight and analysis on the past few days, and if you watched the virtual event, revisit all the highlights with the ABA Banking Journal Podcast in just 20 minutes.
Additional resources: * Watch full videos of ABA Summit sessions.
When Gilda Nogueira’s family immigrated to the United States, East Cambridge Savings Bank in Cambridge, Massachusetts, helped them land on their feet and begin their new life in America. Today, Nogueira pays this opportunity forward through community banking as president and CEO of ECSB. “It took a community to help us out,” she says. “That’s what community banking is all about!”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Nogueira discusses the bank’s career development and financial education efforts, including through its branch co-located in Cambridge’s public high school, as well as support for families at risk, seniors and youth. She also discusses ECSB’s history and organic growth as a mutual savings bank. “Mutuality allows us to put so much money and energy into the community,” she says.
Nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, demographer Lyman Stone returns to the ABA Banking Journal Podcast to discuss how COVID-19 has reshaped the demographic outlook he provided to Banking Journal readers in early 2020. Stone, who was one of the earliest U.S. analysts to warn about the novel coronavirus starting in late 2019, examines the rise in mortality, the accelerated decline in childbirth and early 2020’s pause on marriages and divorces — and what they might imply for the broader economy.
From the ongoing generational wealth transfer to new “wealthtech” solutions and investor demands for sustainability and diversity, big changes are happening in the wealth management sector. To help bankers understand these changes, the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — features three rising leaders in wealth management that represent the full spectrum of the industry, from independent practices to community banks to large private banking institutions.
These three leaders — each of which is being recognized at ABA’s Wealth Management and Trust Conference this week as one of the inaugural class of ABA’s 40 Under 40 in Wealth Management — discuss:
- What millennial small business owners are looking for as they experience liquidity events.
- How they’ve pivoted their practices and adopted new technology to accommodate both COVID-19 and changing client desires.
- Opportunities to educate younger clients and overcome the racial wealth gap.
- Growing investor demand nationwide for ESG investments in both wealth management and trust banking.
- Their own career journeys and leadership tips for those entering the wealth management sector.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
In 1903, Maggie Lena Walker became the first Black woman to charter a U.S. bank when she opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia, as the bank’s first president. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — historian Shennette Garrett-Scott tells the story of Walker and her mission to help Black women find financial empowerment and professional career opportunities.
Garrett-Scott, the author of Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal, discusses:
- How Walker countered impressions that Black women were uniquely risky bank clients.
- The broader context of African-American banks and what set Walker’s St. Luke Bank apart.
- The relationships between Black banks and mutual aid societies and fraternal organizations like the Independent Order of St. Luke.
- How newly professionalized Progressive Era financial regulators threw up hurdles to Black-owned banks and insurers.
- The St. Luke Bank’s relationships with white-owned banks in Richmond and elsewhere.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
Additional resources: * Read a past Banking Journal feature on Walker as one of nine young bankers who changed America. * Read a Wall Street Journal article on Walker’s legacy. * View a virtual tour of Walker’s home in Richmond.
A century ago, Calvin Coolidge took office as vice president. When he succeeded to the presidency, he became a rare president with banking industry experience, serving as a lawyer, corporator, trustee and eventually president of a mutual savings bank in Northampton, Massachusetts, for many years. Then, in office, many of his key officials and advisers were also bankers, including Andrew Mellon, Charles Dawes and Dwight Morrow.
On this Presidents Day bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — Coolidge biographer and bestselling historian Amity Shlaes discusses Coolidge’s personal and professional background, relationships with banks and bankers and how these shaped his economic policy in the 1920s.
- Read a past Banking Journal excerpt on Coolidge’s banking career.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
As an early-career CPA, Carissa Rodeheaver began her community banking career as a trust administrator nearly three decades ago. Now, she’s at the same bank, as chairman, president and CEO of Oakland, Maryland-based First United Bank and Trust.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — Rodeheaver discusses her path to the C-suite and the strategies she employs at First United to provide leadership opportunities to rising generations of community bankers. Rodeheaver also discusses her efforts to bring gender balance to the board at First United and set the right tone from the top.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
From offering bitcoin rewards checking to meeting the unique credit needs of gig workers and sole practitioners, Quontic Bank depends on innovative ideas and execution. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed, Casey Christopher talks about how Quontic Bank’s employees deliver that innovation. As possibly the only “chief empowerment officer” in the banking industry, Christopher explains how she helps Quontic’s employees have the resources they need to thrive and deliver results for the bank.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
Before returning to banking in 2016 as CEO of Passumpsic Bank, Jim Kisch spent a decade and a half as founder or co-founder of software firms that served the financial industry. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — Kisch talks about lessons he brought from his tech entrepreneurship career, including lean startup techniques such as Toyota’s “five whys” and focusing on the bank’s “inner space” technology systems to improve efficiency and risk-based pricing.
But when Kisch returned to banking, he found that core technology had not evolved much since he’d been a bank CIO earlier in his career. “We had a data center running an identical core platform” to what he was running before,” he says. “There weren’t really many changes to that core platform.” Kisch talks about his work on core evolution at Passumpsic Bank and through his membership on ABA’s Core Platforms Committee.
- Access resources from ABA’s Core Platforms Committee.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
What’s top of mind for community bank risk managers in 2021? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — Kristina Schaefer provides an overview of what’s on her radar screen as chief risk officer and general counsel at First Bank and Trust, based in Brookings, South Dakota. Schaefer talks cybersecurity (including the growing risk of social engineering schemes amid banks’ work-from-home environments), credit risk, interest rate risk, fraud and more.
A member of ABA’s Emerging Leaders Advisory Board, Schaefer also highlights talent risk as one to watch in 2021 — with more bank employees able to work anywhere, community banks may find out-of-market banks, as well as other companies, competing for their top professionals.
- Read insights from Schaefer and other bank risk professionals in Top Bank Risks for 2021.
- Analyze the current state of the industry to keep your bank strong and secure at this critical time of heightened risk at ABA Risk 2021, a virtual event combining ABA’s Risk Management Conference, Insurance Risk Management Forum and Risk Quantification Forum.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — ABA Government Relations Council Chair Jim Rieniets outlines policy areas where ABA will focus in 2021. Responding to consumer and business needs through the pandemic remains the top priority, but Rieniets also discusses the outlook for cannabis banking policy, ESG issues and brokered deposits.
As president and CEO of Nashville-based InsBank, Rieniets also discusses how InsBank’s technology posture has helped the bank prepare for the COVID crisis, tips for getting involved in bank advocacy and the future of his bank-related filmmaking hobby.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed — ABA SVP Paul Benda provides a COVID-19 situation update. Between spiking case and hospitalization rates, new mutations of the coronavirus and COVID-19 fatigue, “we’re in a very dark period of time,” he says. In this episode, Benda covers:
- Capacity challenges in many U.S. health-care facilities affecting COVID-19 treatment.
- The slow pace of U.S. vaccinations and when frontline bank employees might expect to receive one.
- The growing risk of the so-called United Kingdom and South African SARS-CoV-2 variants, the latter of which may not be prevented by the coronavirus vaccines.
- Practices banks continue using to protect employees and clients, including face coverings and HVAC filtration.
This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize Xceed.
While many expect community bank mergers and acquisitions to resurge in 2021, any impressive percentage growth will be due to the historically low levels seen during the coronavirus pandemic, says Rob Klingler, an Atlanta-based partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
Expect the 2021 M&A environment to be shaped on the one hand by long-running pressures to sell — including rate compression, succession challenges, liquidity needs and the rising cost of tech investment — balanced on the other hand by concerns about post-pandemic asset quality, the strengths of banks’ core businesses and valuation mismatches. Klingler notes the “underlying tension” between banks’ reserve levels over the past year and the actual performance of their loan portfolios.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Klinger also discusses the growth of virtual due diligence and the importance of face-to-face meetings in negotiating and finalizing deals.
Read Klingler's 2021 M&A outlook article.
The administrator of the London Interbank Offered Rate has made what was expected official: the widely used benchmark will cease publication, with certain Libor tenors ceasing as soon as the end of 2021. With the “Libor endgame” in its final stages, along with a welter of other Libor transition news in recent weeks, ABA VP and ARRC member Hu Benton joins the ABA Banking Journal Podcast to discuss:
- ICE Libor’s public consultation to cease publication of Libor tenors
- Supervisory expectations for how banks use Libor in the interim period before the rate ceases
- What regulators have said about banks’ use of alternative rates to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, such as Ameribor or commercial paper
- The adoption of the ISDA protocol on fallback rates for derivatives
- The importance of educating clients about the Libor transition and what it means for them
- Resources from the Alternative Reference Rates Committee on SOFR adoption, contract fallbacks and other challenges
Additional resources: * Resources from the ARRC (contact Hu Benton at hbenton@aba.com to join a working group) * ABA resources on reference rate transition
The California Consumer Privacy Act, which took effect at the beginning of 2020 and has had both regulatory and statutory amendments since then, has been described as “GDPR for California,” and it has effects far beyond the Golden State as it applies to companies that collect the personal information of California residents, wherever they are headquartered. On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA VP Kitty Ryan discusses:
- Circumstances in which CCPA may apply to banks apart from exemptions for data covered by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act
- The extent of CCPA’s application outside of California
- Different compliance approaches banks might take based on their market footprints, business activities and the applicability of exemptions
- New consumer rights added to CCPA in a successful November 2020 ballot initiative, as well as a newly created California privacy regulator
Additional resources: * ABA staff analysis of CCPA * ABA staff analysis of August 2020 CCPA rules * ABA staff analysis of the California Privacy Rights Act, the November 2020 initiative * ABA Frontline Compliance Training course on consumer privacy that includes CCPA
The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast continues a pre-Thanksgiving tradition by interviewing the winners of ABA’s 2020 Community Commitment Awards. Each interview explores the winning program or initiative at each bank and provides insights on how they might be implemented or adapted at other banks. These stories present the perfect inspiration as we prepare for the season of thanks and giving.
The full episode presents excerpts from each interview. To listen to the full conversation with each Community Commitment Award winner, click on the links below.
- Affordable housing: Joseph Hernandez, SVP and CRA officer, TIAA Bank, Jacksonville, Florida.
- Community and economic development: Ira Robbins, president and CEO, Valley Bank, Wayne, New Jersey.
- Economic inclusion: Tom Kenning, CAO, Alpine Bank, Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
- Financial education: Kenneth Pabón Astor, coordinator, Finanzas en Tus Manos, Banco Popular, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
- Protecting older Americans: Lesley Palmer, managing director, community relations, and Casey Waltz, executive director, social media and digital strategy, Mizuho Americas, New York City; and Jeremy Kaplan, executive director, Encore Community Services.
- Supporting military families: Sammy Stuard, president and CEO, and Charlie Koon, VP and director of military and corporate business development, F&M Bank, Clarksville, Tennessee.
- Volunteerism: Jim Vaccaro, president and CEO, Manasquan Bank, Wall, New Jersey.
Additional resources: * Podcast episodes with the ABA Foundation’s 2020 George Bailey Award co-winners, Alex Fennoy and Detra Miller. * Read a Q&A with Fennoy and Miller on financial inclusion.
For many small businesses, whose owners spend on consumer credit cards and put up personal assets as collateral, the distinction between retail and business banking is blurry. Detra Miller, a veteran of M&T Bank’s retail side, noticed this when working with female and non-white entrepreneurs.
On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast’s latest episode, Miller discusses how she pitched M&T Bank on creating a team focused on outreach to minority-owned and women-owned businesses in the Baltimore-Washington area, building bridges to these entrepreneurs and helping them understand banking and access credit. At a moment when the national focus is on financial inclusion, Miller’s work has resonated with its target audience — and been recognized by ABA with the 2020 George Bailey Distinguished Service Award.
Additional resources: * Read a Q&A with Miller on financial inclusion. * Read more about the 2020 ABA Community Commitment Award winners.
After a long career as a commercial banker in St. Louis, more than a decade ago Alex Fennoy joined Midwest BankCentre. He helped transform the community bank into one that has won awards—including a 2019 ABA Foundation Community Commitment Award—for its responsiveness to local needs. This year, he was a co-winner of the George Bailey Distinguished Service Award, ABA’s highest individual honor.
On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Fennoy shares his own career story and discusses how he and Midwest BankCentre have:
- Pioneered partnerships with local nonprofits and faith-based organizations to expand access to financial services in unbanked areas of the St. Louis region, including co-locating a Midwest BankCentre branch in a historically Black church.
- Developed a suite of provident small-dollar financial products called “Life Happens” focused on the life needs of low-income families.
Additional resources: * Read a Q&A with Fennoy on financial inclusion. * Read more about the 2020 ABA Community Commitment Award winners. * Listen to an ABA Banking Journal Podcast episode with Midwest BankCentre Chairman and CEO Orvin Kimbrough.
Homeownership, savings and holding down a job are three keys to financial well-being and moving out of generational poverty, so that’s what Southern Bancorp focuses on in its home Mississippi and Arkansas Delta region, one of the nation’s poorest. On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Southern CEO Darrin Williams talks about the bank’s high-touch focus on pairing in-depth financial counseling with a Bank On-certified checkless checking account to help reach the unbanked in the Delta.
Williams explains $1.6 billion Southern Bancorp’s work as a group of three distinct community development financial institutions. He also discusses its partnerships, which include equity investments from Bank of America, Simmons Bank, BancorpSouth Bank and Regions Bank, among others, and program-related investments from philanthropic organizations and individuals in the mid-South.
And as a CEO who entered banking laterally from a career as a lawyer and state legislator, Williams discusses the role of hiring from outside the industry in diversifying the ranks of banking.
Additional resources: * Bonus clip in which Williams discusses Southern Bancorp’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and participation in the Paycheck Protection Program. * More information about ABA’s call for all banks to offer Bank On-certified accounts.
October brings a new Supreme Court term, but October 2020 has not brought only a new term but also a new justice — the third new justice to join the high court in less than four years. On this bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, veteran Supreme Court litigators Sarah Harris, Amy Mason Saharia and Ryan Scarborough join ABA General Counsel Dawn Causey to discuss:
- How business-friendly different justices — including new Justice Amy Coney Barrett — have been and how their distinct legal philosophies affect their decisions on business matters.
- How Chief Justice John Roberts’ role as a centrist on the court might be affected by Justice Barrett’s appointment.
- Key cases the banking industry is watching in the coming term, including cases on the Federal Trade Commission’s restitution authority; Collins v. Mnuchin, which is challenging the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s single-director structure; and Facebook v. Duguid, which covers Telephone Consumer Protection Act issues.
Click here for an extended version of this episode, which covers Supreme Court arguments in the era of COVID-19, thoughts on the importance of amicus briefs, court traditions around new justices and memories of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
While the FDIC’s latest figures on unbanked Americans show improvement between 2017 and 2019, the headline numbers mask the fact that some demographic categories face substantial disparities in access to mainstream finance. To address this gap, ABA recently encouraged all banks to offer Bank On-certified accounts — safe and affordable transaction accounts designed to meet the needs of unbanked Americans currently offered by 43 banks.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Old National Bank’s Ben Joergens discusses his bank’s experience launching a Bank On-certified account. Joergens explains the behind-the-scenes process of developing ONB EZ Access Checking, which has no minimum balance, five free money orders per month for bill payments, no overdraft fees and a monthly fee of $4.95. He also discusses how customers have responded — particularly customers who didn’t think they would find a bank account that worked for them.
ABA Chief Policy Officer Naomi Camper also provides background on Bank On and the development of the standards. This episode is part of a series this fall focused on how banks of all sizes are promoting financial inclusion, making the banking system work for all Americans.
A bank account isn’t just dollars and cents on a balance sheet. For bank customers, what’s in (or isn’t in) a bank account can be a source of anxiety. By contrast, says Brian N. Ford, head of financial wellness at Truist Bank, “our research shows that when you have a fully funded account and it’s in the right place, a tremendous amount of confidence will come into your life, regardless of if an emergency ever happens to you in the future.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Ford discusses how he and his team brought financial wellness education — with a focus on emergency savings as a source of financial confidence — to employees at SunTrust Banks, now Truist after its merger with BB&T. Ford also discusses Truist Momentum, through which Truist’s corporate clients can offer an at-cost financial wellness program as a free employee benefit.
This episode is the first in a series this fall focused on how banks of all sizes are promoting financial inclusion, making the banking system work for all Americans.
Commercial real estate has faced substantial headwinds from stay-at-home orders and changing consumer behavior, and in many cases CRE has not received the same level of support available to consumers and small businesses. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — ABA Economic Research Associate Hugo Dante talks about the outlook for CRE and its effects on lending. Among other topics, Dante covers:
- Delinquencies and current conditions across CRE sectors.
- The role of government support for multifamily CRE in stabilizing that sector.
- Which CRE sectors are most exposed to risk from COVID-19.
- Long-term effects on CRE appraisal values and investment from shifts to remote work.
If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
This episode is sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions.
Additional resource:
-
- Article by Dante in the September/October issue of the Banking Journal.
What happens when a Subway foot-long sandwich is only 11 inches long? There’s a class action lawsuit for that. In recent years, high-profile class action settlements have been criticized for delivering little to no monetary relief to plaintiffs — instead, providing coupons, injunctive relief or “cy pres” relief in which the defendant makes charitable donations — while making large fee awards to attorneys.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — class action expert Ted Frank discusses recent trends in class litigation. As founder of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and its Center for Class Action Fairness, Frank discusses his efforts to object to settlements that deliver insufficiently for consumers — and how these efforts have helped to reduce frivolous lawsuits by making it harder for plaintiffs attorneys to get big fee awards. He also discusses the value of arbitration for consumers compared to class actions, as well as the role of shareholder strike suits in mergers and acquisitions.
With Cybersecurity Awareness Month coming up in October, ABA and banks nationwide are preparing to launch the largest consumer education campaign in ABA’s history: #BanksNeverAskThat. On a bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — ABA’s Paul Benda discusses the growing need for anti-phishing education, with phishing attempts up as much as 500% since the coronavirus pandemic began. ABA’s Caitlin Croswell discusses the #BanksNeverAskThat campaign’s ready-made videos and social media collateral and how banks can deploy them easily to participate in the campaign.
This episode is sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions.
Additional resources:
- Register now for #BanksNeverAskThat
Community and midsize banks aren’t one-size-fits-all, and neither are the strategies they can adopt for their core processing needs. On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — two community bank CIOs describe five strategies banks can pursue, from the familiar one-stop-shop model to options like headless cores, best-in-breed and “sidecar” cores.
D.J. Seeterlin of Chesapeake Bank and Jaime Manriquez of Santa Cruz County Bank — both members of ABA’s Core Platforms Committee — outline benefits and drawbacks of each strategy, including what they mean for speed to market, tightness and flexibility for integration, vendor management needs and on-staff tech know-how. They also discuss the directions their banks are taking. The conversation with Seeterlin and Manriquez provides a game plan for conversations that banks need to have well before they start evaluating today’s core provider marketplace.
Additional resources:
-
- ABA Banking Journal article by Seeterlin on core provider strategy.
- Resources from ABA’s Core Platforms Committee.
The fourth season of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — kicks off with Minnesota community banker Andy Schornack. On the younger side for a bank president and CEO, Schornack discusses his career trajectory, what excites him about banking and what he is doing at Flagship Bank and Security Bank and Trust to expand the leadership pipeline to give younger bankers “opportunities to shine” and build their management chops.
“We’ve acquired banks, we’ve done core conversions, we’ve rolled out online account opening,” Schornack says, noting that these projects “allow younger people to take on bigger roles and take on more responsibility.”
Schornack discusses how he forged his career as a bank executive during the 2008 financial crisis, and he talks about how his banks are responding to today’s crisis, including a 2% business loan program from Security Bank and Trust clients in three counties. Schornack also explores how banks are supporting entrepreneurship and responding to the needs of damaged small businesses in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in the wake of this summer’s civil unrest.
Beyond the immediate changes required by social distancing, the COVID-19 pandemic has “accelerated things that were in progress for a long time,” says Frank Sorrentino, chairman and CEO of ConnectOne Bank. The economic and social changes being wrought by the coronavirus make it “incumbent on us as bankers to have those conversations . . . to bring that advice to your clients.”
For example, Sorrentino had a restaurant owner who came in panicked about the future. When ConnectOne Bank staff helped him look at the numbers, the owner realized his business was doing similar volumes of business as before with takeout but with 30% fewer employees. The bank helped the restaurant get financing for tech upgrades to handle the takeout business and move forward, “and yet he was incredibly fearful coming into this conversation.”
On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Sorrentino discusses how bankers can help their business clients understand the post-COVID landscape and plot a financial path forward. He also offers advice about moving beyond coronavirus-related “political football” to have reasoned dialogue about what’s ahead and how businesses can help proactively.
With the World Health Organization’s recent recognition of evidence that the novel coronavirus can be aerosolized in particles that remain in the air for long periods over long distances, how do banks need to adjust their COVID-19 risk mitigation procedures? Aerosolization is a different mode of transmission than the large droplets formed when, say, an infectious person sneezes, and the distance that aerosolized particles can travel make social distancing alone insufficient to prevent transmission.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA SVP Paul Benda discusses the science of coronavirus aerosolization and addresses several ways to address it. Beyond mask-wearing as a first-order risk mitigation (masks prevent or substantially reduce virus from being exhaled, he points out), Benda also discusses viral loads, HVAC and airflow adjustments, filtration options and branch and office design considerations.
Additional resources: * ABA suggestions for addressing the use of masks and face coverings in branches (bankers only). * ABA coronavirus resources.
When COVID-19 accelerated customer movement into mobile and online banking solutions — and triggered consumers to push their funds into bank accounts — banks that had made investments in the digital customer experience were positioned to capitalize. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Radius Bank President and CEO Mike Butler discusses the branchless bank’s fintech-forward strategy and how it helped the bank double account openings in the post-pandemic environment, a core part of the bank’s deposit-focused strategy.
In the wide-ranging conversation, Butler also discusses:
- Radius Bank’s “banking as a service” partnerships with fintech firms and how it vets potential partners to “create an Amazon-like experience for our clients.”
- The bank’s pending acquisition by nonbank fintech firm Lending Club and how the deal may rebundle some core banking functions in the combined organization.
- How fintech firms have prepared for the economic downturn.
- The persistent value of the traditional banking bundle of lending, payments and insured deposits.
Wendy Cai-Lee leads one of the latest crop of U.S. de novo banks: Piermont Bank, opened to address “pain points” faced by middle-market businesses. Often privately owned and multigenerational family-operated, these businesses have complex financial needs based on the intertwining of ancillary businesses and commercial real estate ownership, combined with unique personal banking and wealth management concerns for the business owners.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Cai-Lee also discusses:
- How Piermont’s “tech-enabled but not tech-driven” approach sets it apart from nonbank fintech lenders and other banks.
- The outlook for commercial real estate in Piermont Bank’s market, including decreased appraisal values across the board for retail-heavy properties.
- Piermont’s business and regulatory experience as part of a small wave of de novos after nearly a decade of virtually no de novo activity.
- The importance of diversity to Piermont Bank, a woman-founded bank whose board is half women.
Based in San Francisco and leading California’s market for the Bank of Guam, plus currently serving as chairman of the Western Bankers Association, Dave Joves shares a trans-Pacific view of banking on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. In this episode, Joves discusses:
- The evolution of the commercial real estate market in California, including in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns.
- How the Bank of Guam responded to the coronavirus pandemic.
- The role of the Bank of Guam and other banks in financial inclusion in far-flung Pacific islands.
- Plans for the Western Bankers Association in the year ahead, including pivots toward virtual advocacy at the state level.
The OCC is planning to unveil what Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks called “payments charter 1.0” as soon as this fall, Brooks said on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Jack Henry. Version 1.0 would be a “national version of a state money transmission license” offering nonbank payment providers a “national platform with preemption,” but not access to the Federal Reserve’s payments system. After about 18 months of operating under version 1.0, Brooks said, the agency would roll out version 2.0, which he anticipates would include direct Fed access.
In recent interviews, Brooks has touted the idea of using the OCC’s authority to grant special-purpose national bank charters to charter payments companies. In the ABA Banking Journal podcast, Brooks provided more details about the financial inclusion requirements these charters would entail to provide consistency across depository and non-depository institutions.
“What we have to do is be creative about the way that we measure the benefit created by our charter, and what is the rational, intelligent, but not overly burdensome concomitant benefit we’d expect them to plow back into their communities,” Brooks said. “Rest assured, these charters will have some kind of financial inclusion expectation.”
Noting that banks have faced challenges adopting artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in part because “regulators have been slow to provide guidance,” Brooks also said the OCC is working to evaluate advanced technologies that can improve financial inclusion such as AI-based underwriting.
As part of the agency’s financial inclusion efforts, the OCC’s Office of Innovation is “in the process of standing up an evaluation unit, where for the first time the OCC will analyze specific technologies, look at risk frameworks, engage in model validation and give banks guidance about what we think is good and what we think is risky. We’ve never done that before.”
The goal is to be “very specific,” Brooks added. “I’m not talking about generic guidance about managing safety and soundness and reputational risk. I’m talking about ‘What do we think about AI for credit underwriting?’ or ‘What are the fair lending and legal implications of AI in underwriting under various conditions?’ It won’t be useful if we’re not that specific.”
In addition to the topics mentioned above, Brooks described several other elements of his OCC innovation agenda:
- Changing credit bid rules for real estate owned to incentivize homeownership and renovation in distressed neighborhoods.
- The need to update vendor risk management rules to support innovation.
- The role of core processors in supporting bank innovation in a time of technological unbundling in the fintech marketplace.
Beyond appearing on the podcast, Brooks will be a keynote speaker at ABA’s Risk and Compliance Virtual Conference, July 28-30.
First Independence Bank was founded 50 years ago to help rebuild Detroit’s economy in the wake of damaging urban violence. Today, in a new era of economic hardship due to the coronavirus pandemic, and protests and unrest in response to incidents of racial injustice, minority depository institutions continue to have a unique role in serving distressed communities.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Jack Henry — First Independence Chairman and CEO Kenneth Kelly tells the First Independence story and discusses: the historical struggles of and current environment for MDIs; talent development in the MDI sector; and the ongoing role of minority banks in promoting financial inclusion and helping minority communities build wealth.
As chairman of the National Bankers Association, Kelly also discusses the NBA’s recent strategic partnership with the American Bankers Association and how ABA member banks can get involved to support the MDI sector.
In a matter of days, bankers rallied to deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in loans to support Americans’ jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic. The stakes: the survival of the small business economy on which every bank and community relies. Thanks to sponsor Jack Henry, we present the first episode of “We Were Economic First Responders,” a new podcast series from the American Bankers Association. Bankers tell the story of how they geared up to make Paycheck Protection Program loans, despite contradictory or non-existent regulatory guidance, customer confusion and the challenges of remote work and social distancing.
The Paycheck Protection Program was the largest economic rescue program in American history. Go behind the scenes with the bankers who delivered the relief. Coming soon from the American Bankers Association.
Through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, banks delivered the biggest economic rescue program in U.S. history. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Jack Henry — Luke Bernstein, EVP at Orrstown Bank in Orrstown, Pennsylvania, discusses his bank’s PPP lending. Bernstein shares the behind-the-scenes story of how a community bank, like so many others across the country, worked tirelessly to bring relief and emergency bridge funds to small businesses in its markets.
This episode is sponsored by Jack Henry.
After an incredibly sharp plunge in GDP in the second quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic and associated shutdowns, leading to a 5.7% decline in GDP for the full year, bank economists expect the U.S. economy to rebound in the third and fourth quarters. But there's a lot of noise in the details.
On the latest bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates — ABA Economic Advisory Committee Chairman Catherine Mann, global chief economist at Citi, breaks down the committee's median forecasts, including components of GDP like investment that are projected to continue contracting into the third quarter. She also discusses the forecasted path of unemployment, interest rates and consumer spending, as well as downside risks from a second wave of COVID-19 later this year.
Memorial Day signified the beginning of summer in many parts of the country — and the slow but steady reopening of business activity in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates — Iowa Superintendent of Banking Jeff Plagge offers ideas for long-term solutions to get struggling businesses back on their feet after the lockdown.
To help support small business cashflows without layering on excessive debt, Plagge recommends a long-term restructuring program run through the Small Business Administration modeled on a farm loan restructuring program administered by the Farm Service Agency. He also discusses lessons the Fed might take as it continues to develop the soon-to-launch Main Street Lending Program.
Plagge also discusses how COVID-19 drove rapid adoption of technology at community banks. “All of these technologies that we’ve been easing into, we just slammed into,” he says. And he speaks about his approach to bank supervision in Iowa, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, following his four-decade career as a community banker.
This episode is sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates.
As the coronavirus pandemic and the policy response to it continues to affect businesses and commercial credit, many borrowers are converting revolving and secured cashflow credit facilities to asset-based lending facilities. On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates — Ed Gately of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group discusses this trend and what it means for borrowers and banks. Among other topics, Gately explores:
- What businesses that find asset-based lending facilities attractive, including large and middle-market firms with large inventories such as retailers and food and beverage firms.
- How the economic tail of COVID-19 is pushing more businesses to proactively move to ABL facilities to minimize the risk of breaching covenants in cashflow facilities.
- How lenders are managing challenges of ABL facilities, such as on-site inventory appraisals, during the pandemic.
- The kinds of conversations lenders should be having with their clients when considering a change to their loan facility.
This episode is sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates.
As states begin to relax stay-at-home orders, many banks are beginning to plan for the safe and efficient return to normal in-office operations. Thousands of bankers joined ABA SVP Paul Benda last week for a member webinar on what banks should be considering as they prepare to restore normal operations in the wake of COVID-19. The webinar didn’t have time for every banker question, so the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates — catches up with Benda to run through several additional questions, including:
- Mask policies for both bank customers and employees.
- Hygiene practices in the branch, including the applicability of OSHA requirements and availability of sanitizing supplies.
- Best practices for bank customers and employees permitted in specific spaces.
- Temperature checks at the bank entrance and legal requirements around that data.
This episode is sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates.
Additional resources: * Listen to the return-to-normal-operations webinar. * Access ABA’s customizable matrix on returning to normal branch and office operations. * Join ABA’s Coronavirus Response Network.
“When you think about it, everyone has an unusual relationship to money,” says Nerre Shuriah, who leads wealth planning at First Citizens Bank. A bank-based wealth planner might have roles that resemble a therapist one day and a legal adviser the next, and “you’ve got to be someone who loves to learn.” On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates — Shuriah discusses:
- Delivering a relationship-based asset management service in an environment of fee and commission compression.
- The skills that financial planners require today, including empathy and emotional intelligence.
- The limits of software tools for consumers to access wealth management expertise.
- The growing role of estate planning, advanced wealth transfer and income tax planning.
- How wealth planning and investment management fit into the strategy at First Citizens, a midsize bank based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
This episode is sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates.
Additional resources: * View ABA Online Training options for wealth management.
As part of its response to the global coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Reserve is launching a “Main Street Lending Program” to deliver up to $600 billion in credit to small and midsize firms. On a bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates — two ABA experts provide an overview of the MSLP.
Among other topics, Hu Benton and Shaun Kern discuss:
- How MSLP, as a loan program with a degree of risk retention, differs from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program.
- This week’s changes to MSLP term sheets, including some advocated by ABA.
- Areas where ABA is recommending further changes, including on minimum loan sizes and on reference rate choice.
This episode is sponsored by ProfitStars, a division of Jack Henry and Associates.
Additional resources: * ABA resources on the Main Street Lending Program. * Federal Reserve FAQs on the MSLP.
ABA’s banker-led Core Platforms Committee has released several new resources to help bankers navigate the core provider marketplace. In this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions, Committee Chair Julieann Thurlow and ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols discuss how bankers can best use these new resources to understand the diverse core provider marketplace and discern core technology strategies.
"There are more offerings that are in place right now and even coming to market very soon to create a lot more options for banks depending on what their strategies and plans are," Thurlow says.
ABA unveiled fact sheets on the offerings and future plans of 19 core providers currently in the market or launching new platforms soon, as well as sample RFP and RFI templates that bankers can customize for their own market research. These resources complement previously shared information from Finastra, FIS, Fiserv and Jack Henry and Associates. ABA also shared a timeline of the Core Platforms Committee’s work to date.
Thurlow, who is president and CEO of Reading Cooperative Bank in Reading, Massachusetts, announced a new webinar series on core platform topics. The first webinar, on May 13, will cover contract issues, while future events will explore open banking and the landscape of emerging core providers.
This episode is sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions.
Additional resources:
- Access the resources at aba.com/core.
- Register for the May 13 webinar.
As scientists and public health experts learn more about how the novel coronavirus spreads and how patients contract COVID-19, attention has turned to the risks of surface transmission — and banks have looked to prevent transmission via materials like ATM keypads and paper currency.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — ABA SVP Paul Benda summarizes the latest science on how COVID-19 is transmitted and explores prudent steps for banks to minimize that spread.
And with banks in some places beginning to plan for a return to branch lobby operations, Benda provides suggestions on configuring HVAC systems to minimize the risk of airborne viral transmission via droplets or aerosols.
This episode is sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions.
Additional resources:
- Access Benda’s paper on COVID-19 surface transmission risks
April is Financial Literacy Month, but with schools closed because of the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing rules in place across the country, bankers are pivoting to video conferencing and virtual formats to deliver financial lessons. Teachers and parents are desperate for virtual education offerings, and bankers have an opportunity to amplify their financial education message more than ever this month.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — American Riviera Bank’s Rechelle Ringer discusses what her bank is doing to revamp its financial education offerings for virtual formats, as well as some lessons learned along the way. The ABA Foundation’s Jeni Pastier talks about how to deliver the foundation’s signature Teach Children to Save program virtually, as well as other resources from ABA for digital financial education.
Additional resources:
- Teach Children to Save registration and resources
- Free April 22 webinar on delivering financial education in a virtual environment
InBank started a century ago in a Rocky Mountain mining town, but today it has expanded its footprint and is growing in Denver and Colorado’s Front Range region under a new management team and ownership group led by Ed Francis. In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — Francis talks about how the bank’s technology investments have positioned InBank to serve its customers and thrive long-term, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Most folks today don’t come into branches, especially commercial clients, unless they have cash needs,” Francis says. “Our thought was to really build out that backbone and the technology of the company, and that has allowed us to really do well during this crisis.”
Recorded shortly before the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program went live, Francis discusses InBank’s readiness to support its business clients through PPP loans. He also talks about long-term technology investments that InBank has made in improving the customer experience and enhancing efficiency that will strengthen the bank through the pandemic and beyond.
This episode is sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions.
Bankers have lots of questions about the Small Business Administration’s new Paycheck Protection Program, which launched today to deliver up to $349 billion to small businesses struggling with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
On this bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — Iowa community bank CEO Greg Gannon discusses his bank’s experience making PPP loans this morning. He also brings key banker questions about the program to ABA’s SBA experts James Ballentine and Dan Martini.
The conversation covers how to make loans through the program, including the SBA’s E-Tran system and how non-7(a) lenders can join the program, challenges banks have faced thus far, what’s ahead for participating banks in the next week and more.
As the coronavirus pandemic began to spread across the country, Live Oak Bank did what almost all banks — along with other businesses — did: sent employees to work at home to contribute to social distancing. But unlike most banks, Live Oak had every employee working remotely. The bank has kept all operations up and running remotely, just as it did when hurricanes have closed its Wilmington, North Carolina, headquarters.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — Live Oak CTO Brian Lora addresses how the bank’s cloud-based infrastructure helps it stay resilient when the operating environment changes. He also offers tips for moving toward a fully remote workforce and practices for maintaining a productive work culture in a telework context.
Additional resources:
- ABA resources on COVID-19 pandemic response and business continuity planning
- Free cloud desktop resources from Summit Technology Group for ABA member banks
- April 2 ABA webinar on navigating the risks of rapidly going remote
Amid the coronavirus pandemic — with Americans wanting to help disease victims and healthcare workers or looking for work-from-home opportunities — cybersecurity and fraud analysts have noted an uptick in “money mule” scams, which involve a third party transferring ill-gotten or laundered money. Banks increasingly need to be on the lookout for the telltale signs of these scams.
On a recent ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions, two senior attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice discuss:
- Common characteristics of money mule scams
- The role of transnational criminal organizations
- Red flags banks can watch out for
- The ways these scams can victimize senior citizens
- The role of banks’ suspicious activity reports in stopping money mule scams
- A recent major elder fraud sweep by DOJ
Additional resources: * ABA Foundation and FTC infographic on money mule scams * More information from the ABA Foundation’s Safe Banking for Seniors program
Amid the global coronavirus pandemic — and a massive response by policymakers — how can community banks best meet customer and employee needs while managing their balance sheets and loan portfolios? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions — CenterState Bank Chief Strategy Officer Chris Nichols outlines how he and his bank are thinking through these challenges.
“We’re trying to get a handle on each industry, trying to understand it better down to . . . the details of their cost structure, what exposures they have to interest rates, what exposures they have to other customers and their credit, and then working backwards from there,” Nichols says. “Because I think this could be an all-hands-on-deck crisis for a while for banks.”
In this episode, Nichols discusses:
- The speed with which the crisis arrived and the uncertainty about how long it will last.
- The immediate challenge to credit quality, and managing it by contacting customers, discerning their situations and managing outstanding loans and lines of credit.
- How community banks can manage the rapid margin compression from the Fed’s interest rate moves.
Additional resources: * ABA resources on COVID-19 pandemic response and business continuity planning * How banks are helping clients, employees and communities during the pandemic * Article by Chris Nichols on responding to COVID-19 as a bank.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast—sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions—two rising community bank executives in North Carolina share lessons in career development and leadership. Meredith Begley hails from the mountains of western North Carolina, while Kristen Brabble calls the Atlantic coastal plain home—but they came together through North Carolina Young Bankers, a program of the North Carolina Bankers Association.
During the podcast, Begley and Brabble—who are a past chair and current chair of NYCB, respectively—share lessons in what makes a community bank career successful. Begley discusses her involvement in bringing financial education to local schools, while Brabble emphasizes the importance of seizing every opportunity in her story of working on a core conversion for her bank early in her 20s.
The wealth management business is in a race —not just a technology race, but a race to engage today’s diverse asset management customers. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast—sponsored by Reich and Tang Deposit Solutions—top wealth management executive Gunjan Kedia explains what U.S. Bank is doing to better serve women in the marketplace amid sweeping demographic changes.
With $21 trillion currently managed by women, “I’m challenging our industry to be ready for them,” Kedia says. She discusses research on how wealth managers can more effectively engage with women. Contrary to surveys, women aren’t actually less confident in wealth management, she says; they just don’t receive messages in language that resonates. “Women are far more likely to use negative words like ‘stress, ‘anxiety,’ ‘boredom,'” she says. “They want to talk more about the purpose of what money can do, rather than just the number.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the ABA Wealth Management and Trust Conference, Kedia also discusses the convergence of four traditional models of wealth management and how U.S. Bank’s “smart DIY” approach to wealth technology is expanding customers’ financial capabilities. “It’s a little bit of a race on who gets to all the positives of the four models first.”
With just 44,000 residents, how did the town of Columbus, Indiana, become one of the nation’s leading architectural destinations—ranked sixth of all U.S. cities for architectural innovation and design by the American Institute of Architects? The answer: a community bank president named J. Irwin Miller.
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Franklin Madison, historian and biographer Nancy Kriplen shares the story of how Miller—the head of both the family-owned Irwin Union Bank and the Fortune 500 diesel engine manufacturer Cummins—revitalized Columbus in the 20th century by recruiting some of the world’s most accomplished modern architects to design buildings there. Architects with credits in Columbus include Eliel Saarinen and his son Eero, Harry Weese, Cesar Pelli, Robert Venturi, I.M. Pei, Kevin Roche and Robert A.M. Stern.
Kriplen discusses Miller’s role in hiring Eero Saarinen—best known for buildings like the Gateway Arch and the Dulles International Airport terminal—to design the Irwin Union Bank headquarters in 1954, which is considered one of the earliest open-concept bank buildings. She also speaks to his commitment as a community banker to local ownership and investment.
Two challenges for today’s anti-money laundering professionals: focusing on high-value functions and eliminating false positives that consume unnecessary resources. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Franklin Madison — Nicholas Piccininni, who leads a 1,500-person financial crimes risk management team at Wells Fargo, explains how Wells puts technology to use to tackle these challenges.
One question he asks: “Are we doing tasks [just]because we want to do those tasks, or are they adding value?” More data isn’t enough. AML professionals need to understand what’s driving higher Suspicious Activity Report totals — it could be the presence of more bad actors in the system, or it could just be a sign of a growing customer base.
Piccininni discusses how Wells Fargo employs artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques in the financial crimes area, as well as its use of robotics applications “to pull data from across the company so [AML professionals] don’t have to go into 30 systems.” He also explores sanctions-related screening techniques that “eliminate false positives so we don’t have people going through reams of data.”
With $1.57 billion in assets, HAB Bank isn’t big — but it’s a community bank with global reach. The New York-based institution provides correspondent banking services for 140 banks in 20 countries, primarily in South Asia and East Asia. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Franklin Madison, President and CEO Saleem Iqbal discusses how HAB Bank competes in this global marketplace.
Iqbal talks about HAB Bank’s 45-person correspondent banking unit, in which one-third are devoted to compliance. “We embraced every single change in regulation, and we’ll tailor our business model to the regulatory environment,” he says. As part of the bank’s due diligence, for example, HAB Bank employees visit its correspondent bank customers overseas twice a year.
Iqbal also discusses the bank’s commercial real estate lending business, which focuses on tenanted commercial properties in New York City, New Jersey and Southern California, as well as its trade finance activities and Iqbal’s involvement in ABA’s Community Bankers Council.
It takes a “diversity of imagination” to drive innovation in community banking, says Lead Bank CEO and Vice Chairman Josh Rowland on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Franklin Madison. Rowland — who has been recognized as one of the most innovative community bank CEOs — explains Lead Bank’s board diversity strategy, which has resulted in the majority of the bank’s independent directors being women.
“There’s this vast resource of incredibly energetic and experienced women and people of color who should be asked to join our banks,” he says. “Being more representative of our community so that we could help them achieve success was very obvious as a starting point.”
Rowland also discusses how the “creative friction” of diverse points of view has helped Lead Bank develop fintech partnerships that drive its financial inclusion strategy.
- Listen to a bonus clip in which Rowland discusses his unexpected path to banking, including Ph.D. studies in English.
“For a long time, these were fields that were seen as kind of ancillary—compliance issues, have-to-dos and cost centers,” Juan C. Zarate says of anti-money laundering, fraud and cybersecurity. “Today, management of financial crime risk is now a fundamental part of banking.”
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Zarate—a former senior counter-terrorist financing official in the George W. Bush administration currently affiliated with the Financial Integrity Network, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Harvard Law School and NBC News — discusses the central and convergent role that financial crimes enforcement plays in banking today. Among other topics, Zarate addresses:
- The capacity of cyber criminals to circumvent defenses, manipulate systems and even change fundamental data
- The “arms race” in financial crimes to stop threats from nation-states like Iran and North Korea
- The role of technologies like AI and machine learning in “deepening the moat” around banks, as well as the nearness of next-generation technologies like quantum encryption
- The technical skills banks need access to in today’s environment, including data science and engineers
Increasing scarcity of both buyers and sellers will drive bank mergers and acquisitions in 2020, a top bank deal lawyer says on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. In the episode, Rob Klingler — an Atlanta-based partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner — outlines what to expect in the year ahead, including:
- Scarcity of selling banks, driven by a strong M&A pace in previous years and a paltry de novo pipeline. Banks that are less than 20 years old represent less than 10% of remaining charters, while banks that are over 100 years old — and thus less likely to sell — account for nearly half of charters.
- Increasing scarcity of buyers, as many fast-growing acquisitive banks have reached sizes where their interest in absorbing smaller community banks declines.
- Growth in non-traditional transactions, such as quasi-de novo organizers acquiring an existing charter.