Features

Hospitality is trending in bank remodels

If the technology had existed in 1905 surely master architect Frank Lloyd Wright would have created a mobile app for the landmark bank he designed in Dwight, Ill., as part of his signature organic effort to bring the outside indoors. A century later technology informs design, prodding banks to reinvent customer convenience in redesigned spaces reminiscent of Wright’s prairie-style living room lobby and meeting room with a Roman brick fireplace. On Main Street and, more frequently in new strip mall branches, anyone is welcome for fresh coffee, password-free Wi-Fi and, oh yes, financial products and services. [Continue]

Young people called to the land face challenges acquiring it

When Dayna Burtness and Nick Nguyen decided to break into farming, it took them three years to find the right acreage and the financing to acquire it. Despite their excellent credit, banks were asking for a 40 to 50 percent down-payment on undeveloped land. That translated into roughly $100,000 for the 67-acre site they wanted. … Read more

Will politics derail Farm Bill?

Federal farm policy has a massive impact on the agricultural industry, including its financial mechanisms, and there are good odds on a comprehensive 2018 farm bill being passed and signed. The last bill was enacted in 2014, and as a new one takes shape, many players are lobbying to influence its policies, including community banks. [Continue]

Consolidation drives data processing innovation

Much like, and perhaps in part driven by the consolidation in the banking industry, the number of core processor providers has dropped drastically in the last decade, even though the technological services are in higher demand than ever. A year ago, Vista Equity Partners paid more than $2 billion for D+H Corp., creating a $4.8 billion giant of a banking software provider. [Continue]

From Army recruit to CEO, banker connects the dots

I grew up in a small, low income town in eastern Oklahoma where college wasn’t an expectation. My single dad was a probation and parole officer and the town was rich with his clients. Very early on, the matriarch of the local community bank family encouraged me to look past my circumstances and pursue higher education – if I was in our local paper, you could count on her to send me a kind note with the article and a few dollars. If an opportunity came available in academics or athletics that I couldn’t afford to attend, she would, without fanfare, ensure that the opportunity wasn’t missed. [Continue]

EOS winning devotees in banking

Both banks in the Waseca Bancshares holding company – Lake Area Bank, Lindstrom, Minn., and Roundbank, Waseca, Minn. – were stabilizing in 2015. The banks had come through the recession and put regulatory concerns behind them. Sean Cole, the banks’ chief financial officer, said there was a feeling it was “time to start playing offense instead of defense.” [Continue]

High-energy consultant on mission to transform community banking

When Patrick Alexander, then president of Landmark National Bank in Manhattan, Kan., first attended a seminar presented by The Emmerich Group, he could not believe his eyes — or ears. This was no boring slide show presentation on the ABCs of community banking. People were standing, shouting and laughing. And these were bankers. He immediately started checking for early flights home. [Continue]

Creative meeting spaces appeal to today’s customers

It will really be music to his ears if Mark Bragelman hears, “We’re meeting in The Vault.” The president and CEO of Liberty Bank Minnesota in St. Cloud, who doubles as the town’s lead concert promoter, thinks a creative new community meeting space entered through a vault door will be the highlight of the bank’s new headquarters now under construction along a north-south corridor of I-94, roughly 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis. [Continue]