Bankers often think of strategic planning in the fall, sometimes in conjunction with the annual budgeting process, but I want to encourage you to think about strategic planning now. If you want to conduct strategic planning successfully this fall, you really need to begin preparing now. [Continue]
Increasing competition from tech-based innovators demonstrates the importance of the payments system to the banking industry. Connect payments with information and you’ve got a powerful basis for business success. Paul Waltz, president of Shazam, likes to say the historical value of the banking franchise was in loans; today it is in deposits and in the future it will be in information. [Continue]
I received a solicitation in my personal mail recently. It was a letter from Unison, which offered me money based on my homeownership. I get a HELOC solicitation almost every week, but this was different, most notably because it wasn’t offering a credit product. [Continue]
Everyone is talking about fintechs, but I contend banks still have the upper hand when it comes to controlling the most attractive segment of the lending market. Fintechs that are leveraging new avenues of data to identify loan prospects and quickly approve loans are generally reaching loan prospects who wouldn’t qualify for traditional bank financing. [Continue]
Leadership at the regulatory agencies provides hope for additional regulatory relief. Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting is focused on updating and clarifying CRA for both consumers and bankers. The new FDIC Chairman, Jelena McWilliams, recently outlined several reg relief priorities. And now most recently, new Federal Reserve Board Governor Michelle Bowman is talking about the importance of reg relief for community banks. [Continue]
If you have purchased or sold a bank, you may have come into contact with Don Johnson, a partner at the Eide Bailly accounting and consulting firm. From his Minneapolis office, Johnson has helped many bankers across the Upper Midwest consider some of the most significant decisions a banker makes in his or her career: should we buy a bank, sell a branch, relocate a charter, create a holding company, merge with another financial institution? [Continue]
Some large banks are offering potential customers $300 or more to open an account with them. These types of incentives disadvantage smaller players, said FDIC Chair Jelena McWilliams, who spoke in February at a conference hosted by the Wisconsin Bankers Association. [Continue]
William “Bill” Rosacker will retire as president of United Bankers’ Bank on April 30, 2019, the bank announced on Feb. 22. Rosacker has been president of the Bloomington-Minn., based bank since 1985, and he has been in the banking industry for more than 51 years. [Continue]
We lost a giant in the business world when Herb Kelleher died on Jan. 3 at the age of 87. Long before innovation and disruption were industry buzzwords, Kelleher was revolutionizing air travel with the late-1960s launch of Southwest Airlines. He opened up air travel to penny-wise consumers who previously had to rely on ground transportation for long distance trips. We can learn a few things from Kelleher. [Continue]
The Wisconsin Bankers Association will undertake a major remodeling of its building in Madison, WBA President and CEO Rose Oswald Poels told bankers at the association’s Executives Conference earlier this month. [Continue]