Wow! What a year 2017 has been. Manic hardly describes the antics in Washington after the election of Donald Trump. Those of you who know me are keenly aware that to me, “poly” means many, and “tics” are blood-sucking insects. … I digress, my apologies. This article is not about the swamp; it is about the community-banking environment heading into 2018, so let’s stay focused. [Continue]
For centuries, banking technology consisted of ink on paper. In this century, technology moves faster and most of us have trouble keeping up with it. Consider the smartphone. Since Apple introduced the iPhone a decade ago, the amount of time Americans spend using a mobile device to access the internet has gone from near zero to two-thirds of their digital minutes. It’s no surprise, then, that banks have been working on upgrading their technology. What was their focus in 2017, and what’s coming up in 2018? [Continue]
Information from a newly launched assessment tool shows mortgage delinquency rates have dropped to levels not seen since before the recession, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.
According to the CFPB’s Mortgage Performance Trends tool, the national rate of seriously delinquent mortgages peaked at 4.9 percent in 2010. As of March 2017, the rate had fallen to 1.1 percent, the lowest level since 2008.
That recovery extends to the recession’s hardest hit states. [Continue]
Midland States Bancorp, Inc., has concluded its purchase of fellow Illinois bank Centrue Financial Corp. That marks the 12th acquisition since 2008 by the Effingham, Ill.-based operator of Midland States Bank. There could be more, as Midland States has fresh SEC permission to sell as much as $165 million of new stock “to support the continued implementation of our organic and acquisitive growth strategies,” said Leon J. Holschbach, president and CEO. [Continue]
Opportunity Bank of Montana, Helena, will acquire Ruby Valley Bank, Twin Bridges, Mont. According to FDIC records the acquisition of the $90 million Ruby Valley will make Opportunity the fifth-largest Montana-based bank with $800 million in assets. Ruby Valley has two branches — Twin Bridges and Sheridan — and the combined company will have 16 branches. [Continue]
NorthWestern Financial Review writer Douglas Farmer impaneled three bank marketing insiders to discuss strategies, mistakes and overall advice. [Continue]
The “Best Banks in America Super Conference” hosted by The Emmerich Group on Sept. 11-13 in Minneapolis did not follow the conventional industry meeting script. There were no vendor pitches, no exhibit hall, no breakout sessions that sent groups of bankers into separate rooms. Instead, energetic music opened each session; people clapped along like they do during a time-out at an NBA game. [Continue]
A curious bit of news came across the banking wires recently. Burger King in Russia had launched its own currency: WhopperCoin. Built on the same blockchain technology as bitcoin, such homebrewed money is known generically as cryptocurrency. While bitcoin has remained something of a curiosity to bankers, personalized currencies, particularly in commercial enterprises, are already being developed and tested by the biggest players in the market. [Continue]
Why can’t consumers and business managers send and receive payments as easily as they can send and receive email messages?
That’s a question Kevin Christensen has been pondering for some time. Christensen is vice president, risk and financial services, for SHAZAM, the Johnston, Iowa-based electronic funds transfer company. Along with Bob Steen, CEO of Bridge Community Bank, Mechanicsville, Iowa, and Tina Giorgio, president/CEO of ICBA Bancard & TCM Bank, Christensen participated in a panel discussion on payments at the annual convention of the Community Bankers of Iowa in Okoboji on July 21, one day prior to the long awaited release of the final report from the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force.
Christensen highlighted the interoperability of the email system. Regardless of the company behind the email – Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and others – users can send and receive messages to and from each other without delay. Christensen said that level of “functional interoperability” is what he is seeking in payments. He said the technology already exists; the hurdles are mainly political. “Transferring payments from one organization to the next can occur easily if we just agree to do it,” he said. [Continue]
While the Comptroller of the Currency continues to supervise most of the country’s largest banks, the percentage of state banks in relation to all banks has been growing for years, a fact not lost on Gary Kahn, president of FNNB Bank, Newton, Iowa.
Attending an OCC outreach program in July 2015, Kahn noted a mention of the decline in the number of national banks in Iowa. From 41 in 2008, the figure had fallen to 23 as of that meeting. When he sought out some of the bankers who had converted their banks to state charters, they told Kahn how easy the process was. Perhaps more importantly, they described a significant cost savings.
Kahn said he grew concerned the number of national banks would decline so much the OCC would close its duty station in Des Moines, shifting the supervision of his $84 million bank to examiners based elsewhere, such as Omaha or someplace even farther away than that. (The OCC’s Des Moines office remains open.) [Continue]