The Banker Next Door

The CFPB collected approximately 14,000 comments on the 1033 rule aka Open Banking rule during the open comments period. The Open Banking debate drew comments from many different groups, which included banks, fintechs, advertisers, food suppliers, consumer advocates, convenience stores, credit unions, grocers, retailers, retirees, libertarians, mortgage lenders, taxpayers, and cryptocurrency group...

This is part 30 of the crypto series. Lots of activity in the crypto world! Founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, was pardoned by President Trump. US banks are starting to warm up to stablecoins. Zelle is getting into the international crypto competition. Banking panel says stablecoins must be simple. Fed Governor Michael Barr warns about stablecoin risks. Citi CEO says clients want tokenized deposi...

This is part 29 of the crypto series. Shareholders of Heartland Tri-State Bank received a favorable and somewhat unprecedented ruling from a judge in the crypto embezzlement case. The judge awarded bank shareholders all money recovered, and the FDIC got nothing! Heartland Tri-State Bank was a small bank in Kansas that failed in July of 2023 due to the CEO embezzling $47 million because of getting...

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 SEC is continuing with charges against Ex-Silvergate Bank CFO. Silvergate Bank was the first bank to fail in the Spring Banking crisis of 2023. Silvergate was the main crypto bank in the country at that time and ran the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN), which was the main rail system between the crypto world and the banking world. The failure of FTX in the fall of 2022 led to a run on deposit...

The account switching experience for commercial banking clients remains one of the most confounding issues. We delve into some of the main bottlenecks, which are redirecting payroll, merchant services, ACHs, customer payments, notifying vendors, and closure of legacy accounts. This is a process that can take 3 to 6 months to complete. The bank that can address this issue will gain a lot of commerc...

As banks continue to grapple with cybercrime that includes ransomware, phishing attacks, and business email compromise (BEC), they need to have an incident response plan. However, simply having an incident response plan is not enough. This plan needs to be updated, tested, and practiced annually. This episode examines an article from Independent Banker Magazine titled “Tackling familiar cyber thre...

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) has released their annual survey of Community Banks. Some of the reports’ key findings include community banker optimism is up, net interest margins, core deposit growth, cost of technology, and cost of funds are the main concerns. Regulatory burden fell from 1st to 6th in this year’s survey. Community banks feel that other regional banks are their p...

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued frequently asked questions (FAQs) on issues related to suspicious activity reports (SARs). The FAQs clarify regulatory requirements relating to structuring, continuing activity reviews, and a bank’s decision not to file a SAR. Scott Bessent stated, “These are commonsense yet consequential reforms that will ease regulatory burdens without und...

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data released their Survey of Consumer Expectations for September 2025. The report found that household inflation expectations increased at short and long-term horizons and labor market expectations continue to deteriorate. Links to the press release and the report are included below.   Link: Short-Term Inflation Expectations Continue...

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.

With the bank M&A market heating up, shareholder activism could be on the rise. This episode examines a recent article from Bank Director titled “Shareholder activism could heat up. Should boards fight back?” With the recent announced acquisition of Comerica by Fifth Third Bank, it was revealed that an activist investor played a role in pushing Comerica to seek a sale of the bank. What can ban...

The rise of so called ‘super apps’ that help small businesses to manage messaging, financial services, payments, and provide other tools could change the game for how banks manage their own apps. WeChat, in China, has been the prototype as the do everything app in the world. But now WhatsApp, google, and X, are all in on trying to create their own super app here in the U.S. What can banks do to co...

This episode examines ICBA Advocacy in Action for 4Q 2025. This is a quarterly publication from ICBA which covers all the hot button regulatory topics in the banking industry. Regulation covered includes 1071 rule, deposit insurance, digital assets regulatory framework, trigger leads, ACRE implementation, 1033 rule, and GSEs. A link to the PDF is included below.    Link: top-issues.pdf

Fifth Third Bancorp has agreed to purchase Comerica for $10.9 billion. This is the largest bank M&A transaction since 2021 and one of the largest bank deals since 2009, being over $10 billion in value. This episode examines multiple articles from S&P Global Market Intelligence (subscription required). As the bank M&A market is heating up, strategies are also forming for regional banks...

Charlie Javice was found guilty of defrauding JPMorgan Chase on the sale of her company Frank. Charlie was sentenced to 7 years in prison and is required to pay JPMorgan Chase over $400 million for both the company and their legal fees.

First Brands Group filed for bankruptcy with $2.3 billion missing and a criminal investigation being started. First Brands Group is the second major failure in the auto industry within the last month following the bankruptcy of Tricolor Holdings. Both companies are tied to the Private Credit Market. First Brands Group appears to have committed major fraud and, like Tricolor Holdings, is pulling in...

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.

Here we go again! Another warning about Private Credit, this time from Fitch Ratings. According to their resent research, a shock to the financial system that impacts the Private Credit sector could create a large systemic problem for a wide range of investors and lenders (i.e. Hedge Funds, Private Equity Funds, and Banks). In this episode we review two articles from Fitch Ratings titled “Private...

Companies are beginning to realize a hard truth about AI, namely that making a significant investment building flashy AI prototypes is easy, but creating measurable business value (i.e. a profit) is not! 80% of companies report using the latest GenAI and the same percentage have reported no significant gains in topline or bottom-line performance. This is according to a new report from McKinsey tit...

While nearly all companies are investing in AI, only 1 percent of leaders call their companies “mature” on the development spectrum. This is according to a report from McKinsey titled “Superagency in the Workplace: Empowering people to unlock AI’s full potential.” The report states that the long-term AI opportunity is $4.4 trillion in added productivity growth potential, but the short-term returns...

Despite investing $30-$40 billion dollars, 95% of corporations experimenting with AI have received ZERO return! This is according to a new report from MIT titled “The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025.” The outcomes are so large between buyers and builders that MIT has called this the GenAI Divide. MIT identified four patterns that define the GenAI Divide. They are 1) limited disruption,...

AI has a deployment problem. As GenAI has experienced sky-high adoption a disconnect has grown due to a lack of bottom-line profitability. McKinsey calls this the “GenAI paradox.” Is GenAI developing according to the Gardner Hype Curve or is the technology a bust? This is what we consider in Part 1 of this 4-part series on AI profitability. This episode examines a blog post from PCBB titled “Crack...

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.

KPMG, one of the big four accounting firms in the U.S., was the audit firm for Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank, the three major banks that failed in the banking crisis of 2023. A new report from The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations examined KPMG’s role in the bank failures. Does KPMG bear any responsibility in the failure of these banks? This episode exa...