The Banker Next Door

This episode reviews the Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) on bank lending practices for October 2025. Some of the key findings of the report include tighter lending standards and stronger demand for C&I loans, unchanged lending standards and demand for CRE loans. Loan standards for residential mortgage loans including HELOCs remained unchanged, but banks did report hi...

The federal bank regulatory agencies, as members of FFIEC, released data on small business, small farm, and community development lending during 2024. CRA regulations require the agencies to annually disclose this data. The data collected showed 731 reporting lenders in 2024. The lenders made 9.1 million small-business loans totaling approximately $276 billion. This was an 8.1% increase in number...

This is a clip from the BND: Strategy Room Live Stream from 11-29-2025. This clip provides an update on the Federal Reserve and the current liquidity issues in the REPO market.

This episode examines a research report from CSBS titled “Too small to scale: What 10 years of data say about community bank compliance costs.” The report found that smaller banks reported spending 11% to 15.5% of their payroll on compliance tasks, compared with 6% to 10% for the largest banks. Data-processing costs consume 16.5% to 22% of small banks’ budgets versus 10% to 14% for larger banks. C...

This episode examines Bank Director’s 2026 Bank M&A Survey. Bank Director found that “the gap between buyers’ and sellers’ pricing expectations may be closing as potential acquirers look for ways to add low-cost deposits.” Some of the key findings revolve around boardroom discussions, angling for a better price, mixed plans on subordinated debt, organic growth drivers, limited interest in Cryp...

This episode reviews a recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco titled “What is a Tariff Shock? Insights from 150 years of Tariff Policy.” The main finding of the report is that Tariffs are deflationary! “We find that a tariff hike raises unemployment (lowers economic activity) and lowers inflation.” With all the focus on Tariffs this year, this report is a must see! A l...

This is a clip from the BND: Strategy Room Live Stream from 11-29-2025. This clip reviews recent retail sales data and takes a look at how sales are performing on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday.

The Banker Next Door (BND) weekly live stream show. Strategy Room provides financial news, commentary, top stories in the business world, economic indicators, and all things banking for the week.

America’s farm system is in trouble. Parts of it are collapsing in real time. Over regulation is crushing small farmers. An Idaho farmer named Steve Jarvis has a plan. It entails wiping out every farmer’s debt! Very radical, but he might be on to something. Any bank or banker that is involved with agricultural lending should listen to this episode. If your state is highly dependent on agriculture,...

This BND: Strategy Room Bonus episode is an update on mortgages and housing. This clip is from the BND: Strategy Room Live Stream from 11-15-2025.

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins. Envy is defined as the intense desire to have an item or quality that someone else possesses. Envy is at the very heart of socialism. The recent creep in the U.S. toward socialism politically is very troubling. The U.S. has been here before in the 1930’s during the great depression. History has proven that socialism does not have the answers to economic proble...

The way we dress conveys a message about how we see ourselves and others. Seeing people ‘dressed up’ is becoming increasingly rare. At the same time, the clothes we wear speak volumes about us.  In business, clothes are essential to how you appear to others. How you carry yourself, how other people view you, how seriously you are taken. In society, clothes give us many clues into the mental health...

Due to the recent government shutdown, SNAP benefits and the American welfare state came into focus. Massive fraud in the SNAP program was unveiled. A deeper analysis shows a massive growth in the welfare state since the 1960s. It was recently announced that all SNAP recipients will have to reapply in an effort to crack down on fraud. What does the current state of the SNAP program and welfare in...

Latest update on U.S. tariffs and trade news. 

The Banker Next Door (BND) weekly live stream show. Strategy Room provides financial news, commentary, top stories in the business world, economic indicators, and all things banking for the week.

Jeffrey Epstein continues to be a problem for several banks. 

David Danielson is an investment banker and Managing Director at The Kafafian Group. During the interview we discuss factors that will boost bank M&A in 2026, what drives M&A pricing, why larger banks trade at a higher multiple, why interest ‘yield marks’ discourage deals, how big was the equity hit to AFS in 2022, and will we see another wave of bank M&A. David has more than 25 years...

Most banks across the U.S. are facing some level of margin compression. As a result, it is becoming increasingly more important to understand who your most profitable customers are and how you can boost their profitability. This episode reviews an article from Bank Director titled “Figuring out who is profitable and who is not: A banker’s guide” and a report from White Clay titled “Customer Profit...

This episode provides an outlook for 2026 by covering the following topics: sustainability, M&A, supply chain, equities, debt markets, AI, commodities, and private credit markets. This is a sneak peek at what some of the major challenges, issues, and opportunities will be for 2026. This episode reviews a series of article from S&P Global (subscription required) titled “Big Picture 2026”, w...

Another one of those ‘one-off’ events occurred as Blackrock wrote off its entire $150M investment in Renovo Home Partners. Another blowup in the private credit market. In addition, we check in on the ongoing lawsuits and fallout from the First Brands collapse. BDO’s role as the auditor of First Brands. Major U.S. insurers continue to gobble up private credit deals. Wall street’s reaction. Blacksto...

The CRE maturity wall was created by the increase in interest rates from the Federal Reserve starting in 2022. The increase in rates caused banks to ‘extend and pretend’ hoping that the Fed would eventually bring down rates making it easier to renew and roll over existing CRE loans. This action pushed CRE maturities out to 2025 through 2027. The CRE maturity wall continues to shift with 2026 now b...

This is a clip from the BND: Strategy Room Live Stream from 11-1-2025. This clip provides an update on the Private Credit Market. Blackrock had another of those "one-off" delinquencies.

The Banker Next Door (BND) weekly live stream show. Strategy Room provides financial news, commentary, top stories in the business world, economic indicators, and all things banking for the week.

How can bank board’s properly understand and implement AI? This episode looks at a blog post from PCBB which discusses the challenge for bank board’s in understanding AI and what they can do to strengthen their skills. In addition, we consider an article from Bank Director which dives into how bank board’s can develop AI algorithms to create fairness, accuracy, and appropriate risk appetite for th...

Many Community Banks around the U.S. focus on niche lending products to grow their business and build strong relationships with their customers and communities. This episode looks at three such banks. First Guaranty Bank focuses on commercial leasing. Bell Bank focuses on nonprofit lending. Georgia Banking Company focuses on ESOP lending. Every Community Bank should focus on creating a niche for i...