In the future, it is predicted that bankers with the best understanding of behaviors and emotions will create a new landscape for personal banking. Understanding that delicate interface where electronic machine-banking meets the customer’s need for authoritative human interaction will lead to a new chapter in relational banking. It will be light on human touch [Continue]
Patterns of behavior, including how a customer feels — their emotional state when they are interacting with banking professionals — is valuable information in creating successful transactions and relationships. If bankers know the behavior of a group inside of its customer base in data-analytical terms, and know how their customers feel when they are interacting with their financial selves, it makes it easier to offer products and services that the customer may not know exist. [Continue]
Business incubators provide support for businesses in the earliest stages of their existence. They provide space for ideas and inventions (the beginning of the business lifecycle) and access to working capital through pooled funds provided by banks, micro-credit financiers, venture capitalists, grants, and guaranteed loan programs. [Continue]
The best companies in your loan portfolio are likely the ones at capacity, providing stable and predictable return on investment. It doesn’t matter if these firms are large economic enterprises or small mom-n-pop shops — sales and earnings variances are low and businesses experience planned growth with long term stability. [Continue]
Is it enough to object to the current method by which banks’ CRA activities are audited and evaluated, without first offering a viable alternative based in objective industry knowledge, market demographics, and needs of each local community? [Continue]
There is plenty of evidence that community banks, even those that specifically seek to serve underrepresented groups, find a challenge in maintaining a pipeline of CRA eligible loan activities. [Continue]
The call for public banking is both resurgent and pervasive across the United States, and may actually be gaining momentum outside of its core sponsor groups. Interest in public banking is widespread. Reasons vary, but often come down to unmet need and disparity. [Continue]
“Robotics is huge,” said Curtis Drozd, a third-generation corn, soybean and sorghum farmer in the southwestern Michigan town of Allegan. Drozd has invested in unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, and GPS-integrated auto-steering computers on his tractors. Lest you think Drozd’s auto-steer system is rugged and reliable enough to allow his tractor to autonomously start itself in the barn, drive to the field, and complete plowing or planting all while he attends to other tasks on the farm, Drozd is quick to clarify: We still need the farmer. [Continue]