Iowa brothers receive IBA’s James A. Leach Leadership Award
Neal and Dwight Conover share many life experiences. The brothers, Iowa natives, share a combined 100 years of finance work and decades of leadership experience. [Continue]
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3 top articles at top of home page.
Bowman: M&A overhaul needs updated competition consideration
Reforms to bank merger guidelines must factor in the modern competitive threats community banks face from credit unions, fintechs and larger banks, according to Federal Reserve Gov. Michelle Bowman. [Continue]
A celebration of holding companies
The Bank Holding Company Association was formed in fall of 1981, four years prior to the start of my career as a banking industry journalist. I remember covering some of those BHCA seminars in the 1980s when the farm crisis and the S&L mess were raging. [Continue]
Lending process automation: Risk vs. reward
The best way to beat online lenders is to match what they can do. And for that to happen, you need to automate your lending process — especially at the point of application. [Continue]
Deploying chatbots? Consider the ethics
If your community bank is thinking of rolling out an online loan application program, or any more complex product offering, you will likely have to make choices about a digital helper and how it interacts with customers. [Continue]
Ag bankers, farmers seek solutions to 2022’s challenges
Farmers have spent 2022 working through challenges like rising inflation and supply chain delays, just like other businesses and consumers across America have had to do. Those who make their living in agriculture, and the ag bankers who work with them, have needed to think even more creatively and constructively than usual. [Continue]
Banks made $64.4 billion in 2Q 2022
FDIC-insured institutions made $64.4 billion in the second quarter, an 8.5 percent drop from a year ago, according to the Quarterly Banking Profile. The $6 billion overall drop was due to a nearly $22 billion year-over-year increase in provision expenses, from negative $10.8 billion in 2021 to $11.1 billion this year. [Continue]
Handle departure with compassion
What banks (and really, any industry) can learn from the current spike in layoffs is that former employees can be quite vocal about their last moments with a company. Consider mortgage company Better.com’s callous firing of 900 people via Zoom. [Continue]
Investor groups allow banks to retain community-based ownership
Two years ago, the future of the family-owned Iowa Falls State Bank was uncertain. The Barlow family — siblings John Barlow, Pam Angstman, Cinda Classon and their children — had spent 15 years working on a transition plan to shift active ownership of the $153 million, central Iowa-based bank to the next generation of their family. [Continue]
#QuickTakes: Plinqit
BankBeat’s Greg McCurry discusses the importance of financial literacy and saving with Kathleen Craig, founder and CEO of Plinqit, and Roger Sundermeier, Jr., SVP/Chief Branding Officer with First Arkansas Bank & Trust, Jacksonville, Ark. [Continue]