In the spirit of Twitter’s #FridayFollow, here are three stories related to the financial community that I read/watched/heard this week:
(#1) If you were at Bank Director’s 19th annual Acquire or Be Acquired conference last month, you heard that declining net interest margins, loan growth and regulatory challenges are the top concerns for banking leaders. In the following video, Grant Thornton’s Nichole Jordan discusses these concerns and provides insight into what bank executives and members of a board might do about them.
(#2) While I live in Washington D.C., our company considers Nashville home. In the shadows of Union Station, Avenue Bank maintains its oh-so-cool headquarters. I met with our “neighbor’s” President & COO yesterday afternoon and wound up talking about quite a few things. SEC sports, the upcoming Masters, branding (that’s their hummingbird below) and gasp(!), even a bit of banking.
When I asked if he’d read this cover story in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal (“Business Loans Flood the Market“) about more banks competing for lending opportunities, he said he hadn’t. But, he did have good reason: he’d been talking about that very thing in Knoxville (at UT’s business school) the night before. While a subscription is required, the story lays out how banks are putting “their liquidity to work, but added competition puts pressure on rates and elevates risk.”
(#3) Finally, I receive a number of insightful research reports and newsletters. One of the better ones, IMHO, comes from Clark Street Capital. Each week, the Chicago-based firm shares its perspectives on banking, real estate, and the debt and loan sale markets. Worth a sign up.
About That Ratio 