New Orleans – About That Ratio

April 28, 2014

Its Growth Week

Its finally here… “Growth Week” at Bank Director. Yes Discovery Channel, you can keep your shark week. What we’re about to get into is far more interesting (at least, to some): what’s working in banking today. Most of our team heads down to the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans tomorrow and Wednesday for our 2014 Growth Conference. Before they do, the first of five posts dedicated to building a business.

Think Distinct

Innovation means doing things differently. Not just offering new products or offerings — but doing things differently across the entire business model. Going into this event, I know many believe there are simply too many banks offering similar products and services. I tend to think institutions are challenged when it comes to being distinctive compared with the competitor across the street. This is not a new issue; however, there are more and more strategies emerging and enablers coming to market that can drive brand value, customer satisfaction and profitable growth. Case-in-point: the work of our friends at StrategyCorps, whose idea is “be bold… go beyond basic mobile banking.” One of the sponsors of the conference, I am excited to hear how financial institutions, like First Financial, benefit from their mobile & online consumer checking solutions in order to enhance customer engagement and increase fee income.

Looking Back in Order to Look Ahead

While easy to frame the dynamics of our industry in terms of asset size, competing for business today is more of a “smart vs. not-so-smart” story than a “big vs. small.” During one of my favorite sessions last year — David AND Goliath — Peter Benoist, the president and CEO of St. Louis-based Enterprise Financial Services Corp, reminded his peers that as more banks put their liquidity to work, fierce competition puts pressures on rates and elevates risk. As I went back to my notes in advance of this week’s event, my biggest takeaway from his presentation was we all talk about scale and net interest margins… but it’s clear that you need growth today regardless of who you are. It is growth for the sake of existence.

Getting Social

To keep track of the conversation pre-, on-site and post-event on Twitter, use #BDGrow14 and/or @bankdirector + @aldominick. In addition, I plan to post every day this week to About That Ratio, with tomorrow’s piece touching on the diminished importance of branch networks to underscore the importance of investments in technology.

April 25, 2014

Since You Can’t Own a Car Dealership

As my colleague Jack Milligan writes in our 2nd quarter issue of Bank Director magazine, just because a bank can’t own a car dealership doesn’t mean there isn’t “enormous flexibility in determining a bank’s strategy.” Curious what this means? Read on.

A Sneak Peek at the Core Revenue Champs

Each year, Bank Director magazine looks at all U.S. banks and thrifts to identify the strongest growth banks. We rank the top performers across four separate categories: core deposits, core noninterest income, net loans and leases and the most important, core revenue. Since the magazine mails today, I thought to offer a sneak peek of the results:

What I find interesting about the top two banks on this very strong list: both Customers Bank and EverBank Financial designed their business models around technology from their very beginnings.

Find Your Balance

As I read through an advance copy of the issue, it strikes me that many business areas that historically provided revenue growth are simply not growing fast enough to overcome new capital and regulatory requirements. In this light, you can understand why many say times couldn’t be more challenging for growth in community or regional banking. The corollary to this? Balancing organic and external growth is a key focus area for bank management and boards.

Increasingly, I hear that growth-focused banks are considering (or implementing) strategies that create revenue growth from both net interest income and fee based revenue business lines — think government guaranteed lending, asset based lending, leasing, trust and wealth management services. Clearly, as interest margins and loan volumes remain subject to compression and intense competition, the “optimization” of fee-based revenue is becoming pivotal in enhancing shareholder value.

‘Sup Big Easy

True, a number of banks seek to extend their footprint and franchise value through acquisition. Yet, many more aspire to build the bank internally. Some show organic growth as they build their base of core deposits and expand their customer relationships; others leverage product innovation or focus on their branch network. I bring these approaches up in advance of next week’s Growth Conference at the Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans. We designed this event to showcase strategies, structures, processes and technologies that a bank’s CEO and board might consider to fuel their own growth.

Unlike trade shows and other events, we limit participation to a financial institution’s key officers and directors to ensure those joining us are not just committed to distinguishing their performance and reputation, but also are appropriate peers to share time and ideas with. From companies like StrategyCorps, Ignite Sales and VerifyValid to PwC, Fiserv and IBM, we have a tremendous roster of companies joining us in Louisiana to share “what’s working” at the myriad banks they support. As I’ve done for our other events (e.g. the sister conference to Growth, Acquire or Be Acquired), I’ll be posting a number of pieces next week from the Crescent City and invite you to follow along on Twitter via @aldominick, @bankdirector and using #BDGrow14.

Aloha Friday!

May 3, 2013May 3, 2013

Dass de Thing

Today’s Friday Follow-inspired column takes a decidedly cajun turn (I tink dats rite) with a look back on time spent at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans. Fancy, for sure. Financially focused? Absolutely, thanks to Bank Director’s inaugural Growth Conference.

The slow economic recovery continues to challenge banks ability to grow as businesses both large and small reduce their leverage. Additionally, tepid growth (or in some cases, continued decline) in real-estate values presents challenges in the growth of consumer and commercial mortgage portfolios. Layer on the increased focus of larger banks on growing their C&I and small business lending portfolios due to increased regulatory pressure on consumer products and you understand how challenging it is for community or regional bank CEOs and boards to devise effective growth strategies. These obstacles did not, however, deter a crowd of nearly 200 bankers and industry executives from sharing their insight and opinions earlier this week.

(1) For example, Josh Carter from PwC covered what some of the fastest growing community banks are doing, both those who have grown through M&A, as well as digging a level deeper into those who are successfully growing organically. In his address, he noted a few bright spots have given the banking industry hope that economic and financial recovery is just around the corner (e.g. consumer confidence continues to improve, unemployment is on the decline and the home price index continues to tick up). As such, he believes there are five key areas that community banks should focus on to drive growth in their respective markets:

Emphasize productivity over efficiency;
Sharpen your business model; that is, serve niche segments, provide tailored offerings, excel at service quality, etc.;
Innovate within your business model, as banks that succeed most often are the ones that continually evolve and out-innovate their peers;
Pursue opportunistic M&A deals; and
Broaden your product portfolio.

(2) Preceding Josh was Jay Sidhu, the Chairman & CEO at Customers Bank. If you’re looking for a bank that is leading the field in terms of core income, net loans/leases and core non-interest income, look no further than his bank, which is expanding its business in three states — Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. Jay captivated his peers with a look at the changing face of banks in the United States and the role of a board and CEO in positioning bank to take advantage of this changing environment. Tops for him: an “absolute clarity of your vision, strategy, goals and tactics; there must be absolute alignment between board and management… (along with a) passion for continuous improvement.”

(3) Finally, Brett King and Sankar Krishnan explored the “end-game” in the emergence of the mobile wallet and what it means for the “humble bank account.” With more than 60% of the world’s population without a bank account and the ubiquitous nature of mobile phone handsets and the increasingly pervasive pre-paid ‘value store’ – the two openly considered will banks still be able to compete. I’ll have more on this session in a subsequent post that combines Brett’s presentation with one made by John Cantarella, President, Digital, Time Inc. News and Sports Group. For now, let me suggest a trip to Amazon to check out Brett’s latest book, Bank 3.0: Why Banking Is No Longer Somewhere You Go But Something You Do.

A big shout out to the entire Bank Director team who made this first conference such a success. Laura, Michelle, Mika, Kelsey, Jack, Misty, Jennifer, Daniel, Naomi, Joan, Bill… way to go!

Aloha Friday!!

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