Cameron Miles, president of Keystone Savings Bank, Keystone, Iowa, became president of the Community Bankers of Iowa at the group’s 46th management conference and annual convention at Okoboji, July 19-21.
Miles challenged bankers to “keep doing what you are used to doing – fulfill your sense of duty to your community. Just think about doing it a little better.”
After getting a degree in finance from the University of Iowa in the mid-1980s, Miles decided he wanted to be a banker. The banker in his hometown gave him an interview for a job, even though no jobs were available at the bank; the interview was merely for practice.
The practice paid off as Miles landed a job with a finance company in Wisconsin. Within a few years, Miles explained, he returned to Iowa, first working as a lender at the Clarke County State Bank in Osceola, and then in 1998 moving to Marengo, where he worked as a lender in a branch of the Keystone Savings Bank.
In 2003, he retired from the military after 20 years of service, mostly with the Iowa National Guard. The opening in his schedule gave him additional time to devote to his profession and he was named president of Keystone Savings Bank in 2007.
Tim German, who served as 2016-17 CBI President, urged bankers to remain involved in the industry on the state and national levels. The president of F&M Bank, Cedar Rapids, also encouraged bankers to think about mid-career bankers on their staffs. “We need to get some of the younger bankers involved,” he said. “It is necessary to get the younger folks involved so they can carry on the tradition.”
Tim Zimmerman, chairman-elect of the Independent Community Bankers of America, also encouraged bankers to engage more deeply in their industry. Zimmerman, president and CEO of Standard Bank in Monroeville, Pa., said community bankers need to make the most of their relationship-based business model while using the technology expected by their customers. “Community bankers have always been innovators,” he said. “Through it all, we remain focused on relationship banking and our focus on our customers’ communities makes us nimble and responsive to changes affecting our businesses.”
He said the ICBA opposes the special charter the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is proposing for fintech companies. Tech companies offering financial services should be held to the same standards and rules as traditional banks, he said. “They should not get a light charter for being able to compete with us and not have to do all the disclosures that we do to make it easier for customers,” he said. “We are betting you are willing and able to compete but we need to be playing on a level playing field and we need to push harder on that.”
Zimmerman expects banks and fintechs to work together and said already some 1,200 community banks are engaged in fintech partnerships.
Economist Todd Buchholz, a former White House director of economic policy, told bankers to expect more of the same. He said he expects interest rates to remain low, although two more bumps to the Fed funds rate remains possible for the duration of the year. He expects a strong dollar to continue to impede exports, bad news on the ag front which is already shaky across much of the United States. Inflation, he said, will not “take off.” The equities markets will continue to do well, but “where else are people going to put their money?” he asked.
Some of the country’s biggest challenges revolve around demographics, he said, noting in the 1940s there were 42 workers for every retiree. In the 1950s, there were 15 to 20 workers but today there are only two workers for every retiree. Furthermore, a historically high percentage of people are choosing to exclude themselves from the workforce. Today one in six able-bodied men are not in the labor force, he said.
Buchholz urged bankers as community leaders to become involved in their local schools, as “we are dependent on the kids and grandkids we will never meet.”