The Banker Next Door

This is the best of BND: The Lords of Easy Money. Dr. Thomas Hoenig is the former Governor of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank and Vice-Chairman of the FDIC. Dr. Hoenig is the main character in the book The Lords of Easy Money by Christopher Leonard. Dr. Hoenig became famous for his dissenting votes during FOMC meetings in 2010 along with his warnings about prolonged easy money policy.

This is the best of BND: The Lords of Easy Money. In this last episode of the series, we look at what has transpired from the end of the book in 2021 to today. I pose the question one more time, did the Fed save the day or permanently destroy our economy? What do you think?

This is the best of BND: The Lords of Easy Money. This episode reviews Part 3 of the bank, which covers chapters 13-16.  

This is the best of BND: The Lords of Easy Money. This episode reviews Part 2 of the book, which covers chapters 7-12.   

This is the best of BND: The Lords of Easy Money. This episode reviews Part 1 of the book, which covers chapters 1-6. 

This July 4th we celebrate America’s 250th birthday by considering Adam Smith’s view of free trade. What did he get right and what might he have gotten wrong? We also consider 10 enduring lessons from Adam Smith. In addition, what American classics should you be reading this 4th of July? This episode reviewed multiple articles from The Epoch Times (subscription required).   

This is a great time for your bank to treat the 2Q CECL cycle as a ‘health check’ on the process. Consider questions such as: has anything changed in our portfolio and macro view? How did your ACL move from quarter to quarter? Do we need to consider any changes to our key assumptions and qualitative factors? Other components to review third-party models, overlays, qualitative factors, documentatio...

The Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank recently conducted a focus group with subjects representing the Unbanked and Underbanked demographic. What they found was that this group really likes cash, alternatives such as prepaid cards, fintech tools, and money orders were very popular, hacking fears and bank fees are a top concern, complained about the time it took to open a bank account, and had some neg...

An AI test was conducted using the largest four AI models. The test included Gemini, GPT, Grok, and Claude. Researchers built a virtual town with a town hall, marketplace, police station, and homes. Ten AI residents with jobs, names, memories, and relationships were created. The town was provided with an economy. Residents were expected to earn their keep, follow rules, carry out tasks, and create...

Bank News: First Reliance Bank buys Colony Bank. Superior National Bank to purchase Range Financial Corp. North Shore Bank to acquire 1895 Bancorp. Hancock Whitney Corp’s acquisition of OFB Bancshares was very strategic. Credit Union purchases of banks have slowed in 2026. Washington state de novo United Development Bank announces leadership team. Management shake up at JPMorgan. Big banks breeze...

Dr. Bill Minnis returns to BND to discuss academia, banking, AI, and efficiency. Higher education has many challenges at the moment. AI is changing the landscape. What does this mean for higher education’s future. How does this tie into banking? Where does efficiency come in? Dr. Minnis helps us to understand the current environment and what we should be focused on moving into the future.  

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 Dallas Federal Reserve Bank recently conducted research on the effects of unauthorized or more accurately illegal immigration on U.S. labor and housing markets. The findings of the paper suggest that local employment increased without significant declines to local wages. However, on a per capita basis, illegal immigrant workers reduced wage compensation of the local workforce. In addition, the...

The Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank recently conducted research on the overall risk exposure of bank lending to nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs). Direct bank lending to the nonfinancial business sector in the U.S. has decreased in recent decades. However, bank lending to NBFIs, which then lends the money directly to the nonfinancial business sector has dramatically increased in recent years....

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.