Calling All Bank Directors

On October 24, 2023, the federal banking agencies adopted a new Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulation that revolutionizes the obligations of banks with assets of $600 million or more. On this episode of Calling All Bank Directors, our guest Ken Thomas, a leading expert in CRA for many years, explains what boards of directors can do to support compliance with the new regulation. AABD recorded...

On October 24, 2023, federal banking agencies adopted a new Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulation that revolutionizes the obligations of banks with assets of $600 million or more. The rule will move banks away from the original intent of CRA, which was to encourage banks to meet the credit needs of their low to moderate income communities. In this episode of Calling All Bank Directors, Ken T...

The recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank have upped the ante for your next examination. Expect it to be rigorous and searching for opportunities to take enforcement action against your bank, directors, and officers. Banking agencies have ramped up their review of bank liquidity, investments, and asset/liability management (ALM) in response to the failures...

In this episode, host David Baris is joined by Troutman Pepper Partners Lori Sommerfield and Chris Willis to discuss changes in fair lending regulation and supervision that represent new challenges to banks and their directors and officers. They are co-authors of the Practical Handbook on Fair Lending for Bank Directors and Executive Officers, 2nd Edition. Lori and Chris identify the important cha...

In this episode, David Baris is joined by Dave Martin to discuss the factors that influence banks to sell, and how the selling bank can plan to maximize its appeal to a buyer and the consideration paid in the transaction. Dave details the essential role that the buyer/seller ratio, which considers the number of potential buyers that exist in the bank’s market, plays in the likelihood that a bank c...

In this episode of Calling All Bank Directors, Women2Boards Founder and CEO Nancy Sheppard addresses how to go about finding great bank directors.  She identifies specific strategies to tap into a variety of talented and qualified people from a variety of backgrounds, including women, ethnic minorities, and those outside the community or communities served by the bank. Prior to founding Women2Boar...

In this episode, host and AABD President David Baris is joined by Dr. Ken Thomas, Founder and CEO of Community Development Fund Advisors, to address how proposed CRA regulations, once finalized, can impact your bank. A lot depends on the size of your bank. Banks with assets of $600 million or more will be facing an additional measure of CRA performance (retail lending) and those over $10 billion w...

In this episode, host David Baris is joined by Bill Boyan, a managing director at Piper Sandler, to address recent trends in bank mergers – including valuations, forms of consideration (stock, cash or a combination), and factors influencing their direction.  Bill will also discuss how banks can make themselves more valuable and attractive to acquirers, and anticipated capital needs and the movemen...

In this episode, host and AABD President David Baris is joined by Jeff Marsico, president and founding shareholder of the Kafafian Group, to address how the common misalignment of executive incentive compensation with the compensation of other bank employees can be injurious to banks' profit goals.  For example, if a loan officer is rewarded for volume and not for the profitability of the loan por...

In this episode, host and AABD President David Baris is joined by Ethan Heisler, who will address the Fed’s timetable on rate hikes and quantitative tightening, the impact of the Fed draining reserves on bank deposit growth and strategies to address it, and questions that bank directors should be asking management on strategy and technology spending. Ethan is the Senior Director for Strategy at Kr...

In this episode, Tom Vartanian talks with host David Baris about how bank boards of directors can predict when the next financial crisis is coming, what bank boards can do to prepare for the risks of a financial crisis, and how they can avoid risks created by regulation. Tom is the former Executive Director and Professor of Law, Program on Financial Regulation, at GMU’s Antonin Scalia Law School,...

In this episode, Tom Vartanian will address why the U.S. has experienced many more financial crises than most other developed countries and the role of government in causing or contributing to those events.  He will also discuss what may cause the next financial crisis. Tom is the former Executive Director and Professor of Law, Program on Financial Regulation, at GMU’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a...

In this episode, host and AABD President David Baris is joined by Michael Glotz, co-founder and CEO of Strategic Risk Advisors, to advise bank boards of directors on key ERM questions such as: Does your bank have an ERM policy? Does that policy contain a risk framework (and what are the components of that framework)? Does the framework define responsibilities for the three lines of defense? Are ma...

In this episode, banking and corporate attorney Dub Sutherland will discuss how to plan for and negotiate agreements involving core challenger systems as an alternative or adjunct to the Old Guard core systems, and the role of your board of directors. Dub is a partner at Kennedy Sutherland and former community bank CEO. As an advisor to community banks, he guides his clients in the implementation...

In this episode, banking and corporate attorney Dub Sutherland will discuss whether your bank should consider core challenger systems as an alternative or adjunct to the Old Guard core systems and, if so, how. He will also address the role of the board of directors in guiding management to evaluate, in concert with outside advisors if needed, alternative systems. Dub is a partner at Kennedy Suther...

Host and AABD President David Baris is joined again by Remedy Consulting partner Charlie Kelly to continue their conversation on what bank directors need to know about bank technology and questions to ask their CEO. Charlie will discuss the bank board role in technology contracts, the biggest risks in those contracts, the special events that need to be anticipated during the life of the contract,...

This week, Host and AABD President David Baris is joined by Remedy Consulting partner Charlie Kelly to discuss what bank directors need to know about bank technology and questions to ask their CEO. Charlie will discuss the banking products that drive the need for technology, questions on whether to rely on a single vendor, planning for the long process of renewing a core processing contract or fin...

This week, Host and AABD President David Baris is joined again by Will Taylor to discuss current and prospective issues affecting your bank’s ALCO and investments. Will has been the Director of the Portfolio Management Group at Vining Sparks.  He has extensive knowledge and experience of balance sheet management techniques and investments.  He has served on the faculty of Southwest School of Banki...

This week, Host and AABD President David Baris is joined again by Will Taylor to discuss current and prospective issues affecting your bank’s ALCO and investments. Will has been the Director of the Portfolio Management Group at Vining Sparks. He has extensive knowledge and experience of balance sheet management techniques and investments. He has served on the faculty of Southwest School of Banking...

Host and AABD President David Baris is joined again by Will Taylor to discuss current and prospective issues affecting your bank's ALCO and investments. Will has been the Director of the Portfolio Management Group at Vining Sparks. He has extensive knowledge and experience of balance sheet management techniques and investments. He has served on the faculty of Southwest School of Banking, Mid-South...

This week, Host and AABD President David Baris is joined by Will Taylor to discuss current and prospective issues affecting your bank’s asset-liability management and investments.   Will Taylor has been the Director of the Portfolio Management Group at Vining Sparks. He has extensive knowledge and experience of balance sheet management techniques and investments. He has served on the faculty of So...

This week, host and AABD President David Baris is joined by Ken Thomas, one of the leading experts on CRA in the country. If he doesn’t know the answer, no one does.  He also is the president of Community Development Fund Advisors and serves as a director of a community bank in New York and as Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. He was a lecturer at Wharton for 42 years. Ke...

This week, host and AABD President David Baris is joined again by Tom Fitzgerald to conclude their discussion on how to prepare for your next bank examination. Tom will discuss the human interaction between a bank and an examiner that can be crucial to the results - there is more to an examination than just the facts. Tom was a National Bank Examiner and Senior Executive at the Comptroller of the...

This week, host and AABD President David Baris is joined again by Ross Marrazzo, Managing Partner and Head of Compliance and Ethics of Treliant LLC, a leading bank consulting firm. In Part 2 to our BSA/AML discussion, Ross will address metrics prepared by the BSA Officer for your board to review, the importance of accurate data across the organization, the role of the board in evaluating staffing...

This week, host and AABD President David Baris is joined by Ross Marrazzo, Managing Partner and Head of Compliance and Ethics of Treliant LLC, a leading bank consulting firm. In Part 1 to our BSA/AML discussion with Ross, he will address bank board responsibilities and regulatory expectations, program sustainability and resilience, how bank boards succeed or fail, and the metrics that boards shoul...