The Banker Next Door

This episode examines an article from Banking Dive titled “Customers CEO talks lessons learned from Fed enforcement action.” Approximately one year ago the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank hit Customers Bank with an enforcement action related to its digital assets. With the changes in Presidential Administration, regulatory attitude toward digital assets, new regulations around stablecoins, and i...

This episode examines the FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile for the second quarter of 2025. Overall results for the banking industry included net income decreased, net interest margin remained relatively unchanged, loan growth accelerated, domestic deposits increased, and asset quality metrics remained generally favorable. The deposit insurance fund (DIF) reserve ratio increased 5 basis points and no...

This episode is a review of the book MoneyGPT: AI and the threat to the global economy by James Rickards. This book explores the impact of AI on global financial markets, highlighting its potential to both enhance efficiency and trigger catastrophic economic disruptions due to its lack of human judgment. This review mainly focuses on chapter 2 in the book, which is titled Banking Mythos. This chap...

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.

This episode examines an article from Bank Director titled “Two CEOs discuss how their banks cultivate C-suite talent.” This article covers an interview with two bank CEOs to get their perspectives on hiring outside the industry, evolving skills, and connecting with board members. Some of the questions asked include is it possible to hire outside of the banking industry to fill roles in the C-suit...

This episode examines an article from Bank Director titled “In a room full of bankers, almost no one trusted their IT.” How confident is bank management that IT can turn investments into business outcomes? Turns out management is not very confident at all. There is a lack of alignment between technology decisions and business needs. Having the right leader makes all the difference. You should cons...

This episode examines an article from Bank Director titled “Invasion of the job snatchers: Digital bank workers have arrived” and a blog post from PCBB titled “Autonomous AI employees have arrived.” PCBB blog post discusses what is an AI worker, who is using AI workers in banking, what are the opportunities and risks, and what could be next for AI workers. The Bank Director article also discusses...

This episode examines an article from Independent Banker Magazine titled “Why community banks are revamping their CD strategies.” According to the article bankers should be considering the following: CD education is key, market competitively, personal service always wins and be proactive in marketing CDs. With the increase in interest rates in recent years deposit pricing, deposit strategy, and co...

This episode is an interview with First International Bank & Trust (FIBT) CEO, Peter Stenehjem. FIBT has been around since 1910 and has a rich history in North Dakota. Peter and I discuss the history of the bank, which ties in directly with the history of his family, as he is a 4th generation banker. We discuss FIBT’s strategy around banking-as-a-service and some of their key products Kotapay...

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.

This is part 28 of the crypto series. In this episode we review an article from The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) titled “Tequila, Drugs, and Torture: The spending binge of two crypto bros that ended behind bars.” This episode is the story of two crypto bros, William Duplessie and John Woeltz, who started out with large dreams of making it big in the business world only to have every...

This episode examines an article from Independent Banker Magazine titled “Is your bank overspending on tech?” How is your bank doing with its tech spending? This article lays out recommendations on how your bank can better control and get more out of its tech budget. Recommendations include 1) Address overlapping spending, 2) Avoid the pitfalls of unfit software, 3) Conduct a software audit, 4) De...

This episode reviews an article from Bank Director titled “CECL update eases the math for M&A.” One of the problems with M&A transactions is called the CECL double count. This is where an acquiring bank must make additional provisions for non-purchased credit-deteriorated loans (loans that have not experienced credit loss). A buyer must set aside EXTRA capital to cover expected losses on l...

This episode reviews a blog post from PCBB titled “How many minutes does your digital onboarding take?” Digital-only banks are landing 4 out of every 10 new checking accounts. Is your bank offering customers digital online account opening? If so, how long does it take to open an account? What is the customer experience like? Some ways that banks can improve this process include 1) Prioritize speed...

This episode reviews a blog post from PCBB titled “Why cloud-based lending solutions could be the future.” With the continuous increase in technology, regulatory requirements, and changing customer needs, should your bank consider moving to a cloud-based lending solution? This blog post offers five ways in which cloud-based lending solutions can help to improve your internal operations and custome...

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.

This is part 27 of the crypto series. In this episode we review a series of crypto related articles. The hottest business trend this summer is buying crypto. New company Ether Machine wants in on the action. Trump Media and Technology Group turns a profit while continuing to build its crypto stake. Team-ups all over the place with Goldman Sachs, BNY, Coinbase, and PNC. Regulators continue to move...

This episode examines a series of articles around artificial intelligence (AI). Tesla signs deal with Samsung to make AI chips. Musk also raises money for xAI chips. Altman didn’t expect banks to take to AI so soon. OpenAI signs deal with UK. Jenson Huang has serious clout in Washington. JPMorgan overhauls quantum computing. Wells Fargo taps google cloud for agentic AI push. Gen Z has potential jo...

This episode examines the Federal Reserve’s July 2025 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS). The survey addresses changes in the standards and terms on, and demand for, bank loans to businesses and households over the past three months. In the 2Q 2025, there were generally tighter lending standards and weaker demand for C&I and CRE loans. For households, there are generally unchanged lend...

This episode examines Bank Director’s 2025 Governance Best Practices Survey. This survey looks at how bank boards are being run. How are they conducting oversight, examining risk, and executing strategy. Key findings from the report include setting expectations, virtual deliberations, lengthy board packets, leading the board, and new perspectives. A link to the report is included below. Link: 2025...

This episode is a review of The President’s working group on digital assets report titled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology.” The report is lengthy, but full of great information. Key topics include the digital asset ecosystem, digital asset market structure, banking and digital assets, stablecoins and payments, countering illicit finance, and taxation. The report...

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.

This episode examines a blog post and article from The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The blog post is titled “Why options mania is a contrarian indicator.” The article is titled “In this frothy market, it’s boom times for brokers like Robinhood.” Options trading has exploded in the last five years due to going electronic and the innovation of products such as zero-day-to-expiry cont...

This episode examines an article from Independent Banker Magazine titled “How to build an AI policy at your community bank.” Does your bank have an AI policy? Not sure where to start? This article offers four steps your bank should be following to set up an AI policy. 1) Figure out where AI is already being used in your bank. 2) Set guidelines for bank employees’ use of AI. 3) Assess the customer...

This episode reviews ICBA’s The Genius Act: A Summary for Community Banks. The report includes the following topics: permitted payment issuers, composition of reserves, authorization for bank custody, application of AML, tailored capital, liquidity, and risk management rules, and timetable for implementation.