Bank Midwest adopted the Fierce program for its staff six years ago after Mary Kay Bates, president and CEO, was certified in the program. Bates, BankBeat’s 2019 Banker of the Year, views employee-customer communications as critical to the future success of the bank because people are less likely to interact face-to-face. [Continue]
In 1995, Mary Kay Bates walked into the Okoboji, Iowa, branch of Bank Midwest with a portfolio full of “B” credits. She had been working as a mortgage lender with Stockdale Bank, one of the last in a strange breed of private banks that took uninsured deposits and originated mortgages for high-risk customers. Regulators weren’t pleased to have private banks operating outside the system, so on its way to extinction Stockdale Bank sold its deposits and mortgages to Bank Midwest, which was why Bates was in that day, fully prepared to explain every relevant detail to the portfolio’s new owners. [Continue]
It’s hard not to be optimistic when someone drops some extra cash in your pocket, or when the people who wield power over you start to show some empathy. The new year began in the wake of President Trump signing the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act. Many banks responded by doling out tax bonuses to employees. “If this tax bill is going to have the impact that is being talked about, then you have to get it out there,” said Al Tubbs, chairman and CEO of Ohnward Bancshares, Maquoketa, Iowa. “You have to share it.” [Continue]
When you consider that cyber crime now surpasses the drug trade as the most prevalent criminal activity in the United States, it makes sense for a cybersecurity expert to suggest bankers be proactive by setting up a bitcoin account in order to pay ransom. Because when your data is held hostage (or you are locked out of your systems), time is everything. [Continue]
The number of national bank charters in the Midwest has dropped precipitously in the last decade. And while industry contraction is a factor, community bankers also point to savings on examination costs, local decision-making by (and access to) examiners, along with the dilution of national banking powers as reasons they’ve opted to convert to a state bank charter from a national charter.
One place where the decline in national bank charters is astonishing is in Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting’s native Iowa, where there are 17 national charters today where there had been 42 a decade ago. The difference is even more pronounced in Nebraska, which currently has 12 nationally chartered institutions, down from 57 a decade ago. [Continue]
Joseph Otting, the top regulator for the country’s national banks, still considers himself to be a banker. It’s an admission that explains the consternation voiced by Congressional Democrats and community groups when he was nominated to become the 31st Comptroller of the Currency. To the banking industry, however, Otting’s selection was idiomatic: Who better to understand the bottom-line impact of banking regulation than one who toiled under its weight?
Otting was sworn in as Comptroller on Nov. 27, 2017, and immediately set to work on his priorities: Reforming the Community Reinvestment Act; encouraging bankers to return to small dollar lending; reducing Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering compliance burden; and releasing the special purpose national bank charter for non-depository fintech companies. His priorities are informed by 30 years spent in banking, primarily on the West Coast.
His proposed reforms have captured attention, not all of it positive. The OCC’s plan for a special purpose national bank charter for fintechs, for example, prompted the New York State Department of Financial Services to file a lawsuit, calling the plan “ill-conceived.” The Conference of State Bank Supervisors, which represents regulators responsible for state banks, filed a lawsuit Oct. 25, saying the OCC is overstepping its authority.
On his goals to reform CRA, Otting said he’s been told he “needs his head examined.” Those words came from his friends. [Continue]
In 2009, Sunrise Banks became a Certified B Corp, one of only a handful of financial institutions across the country to do so. The bank also became a legal Minnesota benefit corporation in 2015, shortly after the state made that designation available. [Continue]
People pick their bank in part because they can reach their banker when needed. Why not convert that into a brand that tells both a personal story and the story of the bank? [Continue]
In the last 18 months, the CEO has steered the bank through construction of a new headquarters, a rebranding, hiring a president and buying another bank — all while remaining active on the board of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and the Community Depository Institution Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Continue]
Kurt Yost, president and CEO of the Nebraska Independent Community Bankers, passed away unexpectedly on October 29, from a complication of surgery. He was 70. Yost had led the NICB for 34 years and was set to retire at the end of this year. He had planned to split his retirement between spending time with … Read more