The Banker Next Door

Alan Greenspan served 19 years (5 terms) as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. Alan followed Paul Volcker and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. Alan was a highly intelligent man, a great economist, who could be funny (in his own way), charming, eloquent, and very likeable. He served under both Republican and Democrat Presidential administrations, getting along with both par...

Perpetual Futures (“Perps”) are derivative contracts without an expiration date. They allow traders to speculate on the underlying asset prices indefinitely. The critical item to note is that with a Perps contract you DO NOT OWN the underlying asset. Perps contracts are different from Synthetic Futures Contracts. Perps have recently come into the news as the CFTC recently approved Kalshi to start...

Bank News: M&A update – Santander-Webster deal receives OCC approval, MidFirst Bank will purchase Texas-based Dallas Capital Bank, Michigan-based Isabella Bank Corp. will purchase Grand River Commerce for roughly $54.6MM, Tyson Corner, Virginia-based ODNB Financial Corp. will purchase Washington, D.C.-based National Capital Bancorp for $97.8MM. Robinhood is eliminating 300 employees. Fiserv na...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on June 19, 2026. Kevin Warsh conducted his first FOMC meeting as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Warsh wants to bring ‘regime change’ to the Fed. The first meeting focused on four main topics: 1) interest rates, 2) Fed statement (Forward Guidance), 3) Dot Plot, and 4) committees. The FOMC voted unanimously 12-0 to hold the Federal Fund...

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. Feedspot Podcasts list of 80 Best Banking Podcasts - https://podcast.feedspot.com/banking_podcasts/  

Bank Director’s 2026 Compensation & Talent Survey looks at compensation for bank CEOs, CFOs, and board members. The survey also looks at succession planning and AI impacts on the workforce. Some of the key findings include succession planning responsibility, developing the next CEO, increased costs (headcount), talent opportunities from M&A, rising CEO bonuses, and DEI value. This episode...

Nonbank lenders generate more than 85% of all residential mortgage loans. Are banks losing opportunities because of price and product or are they losing based on timing? Banks already have a relationship with borrowers. They have their customers deposit data. But are banks watching signals in the deposit data that can alert them to when a customer may seek a residential mortgage? If they do have t...

Lending for community banks started off good in 2026 despite higher interest rates, geopolitical headwinds, and tariff uncertainty. Now banks must consider the current interest rate environment, further rate cuts are unlikely in 2026, and economic caution, the Iran conflict, oil prices, and inflation. Community banks should focus on staying disciplined with credit underwriting and focus on relatio...

Italian bank Monte Dei Paschi (BMPS) has had quite the saga over the last 9 months. It all started back in September 2025, when BMPS initiated a hostile takeover of investment bank Mediobanca for $19B. BMPS CEO, Luigi Lovaglio, then presented a plan for delisting Mediobanca and expanding the bank into international markets. The departing board for the bank did not like this plan and decided to rem...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on June 13, 2026. Data center development problems have emerged. As big tech companies continue to build up their piles of cash to fund data center development, the build-out is falling behind. Local communities are starting to question just how many real jobs these data centers will create? One of the main companies at the heart of the elec...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on June 13, 2026. Elon Musk has become the world’s first Trillionaire! At least on paper. With the IPO for SpaceX dropping this week we look at how much money Elon is worth. We examine a couple of articles from The Wall Street Journal that measure Elon’s wealth and consider just how large a trillion dollars is.

Bank News: FDIC outlines 5 potential changes that it is considering. Fed Governor Michael Barr is concerned about deregulation. FinCen is directing banks to report suspicious activity around customers immigration status following a recent EO. JPMorgan sees a longer timeline to Agentic AI usage by retail customers. Senator Warren blasts Goldman Sachs CEO for keeping disgraced legal council as and “...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on June 13, 2026. What are tokens? How do companies purchase AI usage through tokens? How are tokens valued from a dollar perspective? These are important questions to understand as the AI price wars have begun. Anthropic and OpenAI have both filed for an IPO, but will they make it? The government forced Anthropic to put the brakes on some o...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on June 13, 2026. The SpaceX IPO has taken flight delivering approximately $75 billion in fresh capital and a $2 trillion dollar valuation. This clip looks back at SpaceX’s beginnings in 2002 and the journey that brought them to today. Elon’s goal was to spark people’s imagination and get them invested in space again. He achieved that and so...

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.

Metropolitan Capital Bank & Trust (MCB) failed in January 2026. I covered the failure in a previous episode, but this episode covers the FDIC Office of Inspector General (OIG) report that reviews what they believe caused the failure. The ongoing problems at MCB have been documented. The OIG report concluded that bad loans from poor internal oversight, governance, and risk management led to cri...

Is the Private Equity industry destroying our economy and thus capitalism? This is a very deep question that cuts to the very heart of what is ailing our economic system. Small business owners don’t want to grow their companies anymore; they just want to sell. There is no thought of building for the next generation, there is only the unicorn status, possible IPO, and then the sale. Private Equity...

Prominent Wall Street short seller Andrew Left was convicted of securities fraud on June 1st. Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Left used his TV appearances and website, Citron Research, to make certain assumptions about various stocks and then match these comments to his own trading positions. The problem is, he would use these tactics to pump up the stocks, while at the same time placing trades in th...

The FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile covers key financial activity for the banking industry, community banks, and the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF). For the 1Q 2026, Net Income rose, Net Interest Margin decreased, loan growth continued, domestic deposits increased for the seventh consecutive quarter, and asset quality metrics remained generally favorable. Additionally, provision expense rose from the...

Bank News: CFPB orders all remote workers to return to DC headquarters by August 31st. CFPB directs BILT Technologies to reimburse any customers affected by card transition. CFPB faces lawsuit over Regulation B rule change. California judge rules in favor of OppFi. LendingClub sees a learning curve for fintechs that are seeking a bank charter. First National bank buys Blue Ridge Bancshares. OceanF...

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.

The Department of Labor recently reported that the labor force participation rate for prime age men (age 25 to 54) dropped to 66%! About 1/3rd of men or approximately 7 million have dropped out of the labor force all together. This is a shocking statistic. There is no doubt that the country, overtime, will feel the absence of these men in a very profound way. The big question right now is how did...

As consumer usage of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) continues to increase, should banks consider offering this product for their customers? 50 million consumers have used BNPL over the last 12 months. Total transaction value increased to $70 billion in 2025. Problems with BNPL persist. There are concerns with consumers around delinquency and behavior finance issues. There are considerations internally...

This episode is an update on Private Credit. The failure of U.K. mortgage lender MFS continues to ripple through markets as banks and financial firms in the U.K. and the U.S. sustain losses. Investors should be very careful about buying shares of Business Development Companies (BDCs) because what may seem like a bargain but could be a disaster. Banks lending to NDFIs decreased in the 1Q of 2026. R...

We have all seen the movie It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy plays the President of a small savings and loan bank and in one of the pivotal scenes of the movie he prevents a bank run by talking to the customers and explaining how the bank works. Bank runs have been prevalent in the U.S. since the founding of the country as noted in various panics throughout the 19th and 20th centurie...