NAFTA talks have stalled. At issue for the administration these days are the rules surrounding automobile production and as a result, efforts to renegotiate the trade agreement could spill into 2019, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. [Continue]
The old adage that credit quality is king is as true as ever. And while fewer banks these days are failing (three failed in the United States in 2017) and fewer turn up on regulators’ lists of troubled banks, there has been a slight uptick in the issuance of MOUs and board resolutions. That’s according to David Kemp, president of Atlanta-based Bankers Management Inc. [Continue]
Advocacy [at ICBA] is focused on S. 2155. Overall, this concept of proportional regulation just has to be driven home. We have to find the ways that regulation is structured around the risk that community banks represent. Also, advocating for the level playing field, ensuring that as an industry we have an opportunity to compete. We will go head to head with anyone, but we want the level playing field. [Continue]
Satisfied customers are loyalty neutral and will leave one bank for another when offered an elevated customer experience, said C. Richard Weylman, author of “The Power of Why” and “Start with Why.” Weylman, speaking at the Nebraska Bankers Association’s annual convention May 3 in Omaha, Neb., offered bankers practical steps to connect with customers they way top retailers do. [Continue]
In his annual association report, Richard Baier, president and CEO of the Nebraska Bankers Association since 2014, talked about the viability of an industry that faces a talent shortage. In recent months, Baier said the association held its first ever Young Bankers Day at the Capitol and 15 bankers attended. “It was refreshing to see these people,” Baier said. “We will continue to engage the next generation” and get them involved in the donating to the PAC. [Continue]
Thomas M. Hoenig announced on April 27 he plans to step down as vice chairman and member of the board of directors of the FDIC on April 30. He has served since April 2012, a full six-year term. [Continue]
One day before Mike Burke, a robbery and crisis management consultant with Shazam, spoke to bankers in Des Moines about card skimming and card cloning, two men with handguns robbed the Maxwell State Bank, in nearby Ames. No customers were in the bank at the time of the robbery and no one was injured. By the time Burke launched into his presentation about financial crimes, the men still hadn’t been apprehended. And while card skimming and card cloning aren’t as trauma inducing as staring down the barrel of a gun, they are crimes on the rise in the Midwest, and they have the potential to become a huge problem for financial institutions. [Continue]
Though 96 percent of the 275 state chartered banks in Iowa have a CAMELS rating of 1 or 2, there’s been a slight increase in the number of 3-rated banks in Iowa in the past two years. “You may think this increase is expected because of the current ag environment,” said Ron Hansen, Superintendent of Banking for Iowa. “I would tell you it’s as much caused by a decrease in the management component of the CAMELS rating as it has been by the asset quality component.” [Continue]
The rules that govern the use and cost of a bank’s debit card program are written by a small group companies and these rules set the terms for cardholder access as well as the costs borne by a financial institution. In its effort to support its customers and re-balance the power wielded by the largest players in the arena, Johnston, Iowa-based Shazam made a strategic decision to engage in advocacy on this and other issues. [Continue]
Small business owners are more optimistic about their prospects for success than they’ve been since the Reagan administration. The Index of Small Business Optimism, the output of a quarterly survey of economic indicators tabulated by the National Federation of Independent Business, increased in February to the second highest level in the survey’s 45-year history. Notably, … Read more