The Purposeful Banker

In this installment of The Purposeful Banker, Dallas Wells and Alex Habet get real about what it takes to serve today's small businesses. While digital capabilities are in demand and certainly table stakes, there's more to consider. How well do you know the SMB customers you're trying to attract, and what changes does your FI need to make to retain them once you have them?

It's Jim Young's final appearance on the show! He marks the occasion with Dallas Wells by going back to the beginning, more than six years ago, and comparing what commercial banking was like then, vs. now. 

Interest rate hikes are (finally) on the horizon. How should banks adjust their 2022 strategies? Will an increase in commercial loan demand follow? And when the funding costs rise, will pricing move up as well? 

Discussing the findings in the Economist's recent report: "What Is Shaping the Ecosystem of Small Business Lending?" It's based on a global survey of lenders from traditional FIs and fintechs. 

A look at some of the insights and analysis coming up in the annual State of Commercial Banking webinar and report. 

We start the year off by taking a look back at how the commercial pricing story unfolded over the course of 2021: where things started, what happened along the way, and where we stand now as we head into 2022.

A generation of commercial bankers is rapidly moving toward retirement. What steps does the industry need to make to lessen the impact of this impending talent crunch? 

Discussing the recent BCG/Q2 partnership, as well as YieldBuilder - the product jointly developed by the two companies - and the impact it will have on the commercial banking industry. 

We look at insights from the PrecisionLender database, as well as polls conducted with commercial bankers, to see what those findings tell us about Primacy - why it's so vital now, why it's so difficult for some banks to achieve, and the bottom-line impact of broadening relationships. 

Spreadsheets have their uses, but they're often not capable of performing some of the tasks banks ask of them. In this episode we look at spreadsheet shortcomings and the ways they could be harming your bank.

PrecisionLender's founder Carl Ryden likes to say "Data that doesn't lead to action is just trivia." Banks are great at measuring all sorts of things, but which metrics are really helping them improve performance and which ones are just ... trivia? 

Big-bank M&A deals are at their highest levels since the late 90's. In this episode we explore what factors are pushing more and more and regional banks to join forces. 

How can your bank keep the competition from raiding your deals? And are the processes your bank puts in place to guard against bad deals actually doing more harm than good? We go back into the blog vault for this week's Purposeful Banker episode. 

We revisit an oldie-but-goodie topic: Banks spend a lot of time and effort calculating the price for each commercial deal. But how much do they focus on whether their bankers actually "get" that price? 

Are some of the pricing and structuring tactics being used in the commercial banking market lately a sign of growing anxiety, or perhaps potential opportunities? 

Shifting the focus from commercial RMs, to the Treasury Management perspective and exploring how Treasury officers view the deal collaboration process. 

Banks need better collaboration on commercial deals in order to win coveted deals and improve profitability. But that's much easier said than done. 

We preview our upcoming webinar, "Connecting Commercial Banking Technology," discussing why banks are focusing more on building an end-to-end commercial tech stack and how PrecisionLender connects the key pieces. 

Primacy is a buzzword at a lot of commercial banks these days, but what does it mean, exactly? What truly determines primacy? And what do banks need to do to achieve it?

Commercial bankers customarily work hard to protect margins on their loans. But in the current environment, is there a case to be made for booking deals even if it means giving on margin and coming in below return targets? 

Bankers often use the promise of additional cross-sell to make commercial loan deals work. But those promised accounts often never show up. Why do banks struggle so much with this critical final step? 

In this episode we talk about some of the potential downside to adding scale via mergers, as well as the market shift toward looser credit standards. 

Every bank says it's a "relationship bank," but their actual relationship profitability often looks quite different. We share some of those stories, as well as ways they can improve performance.

Taking a look at our last Commercial Loan Pricing Market Update from the first quarter of 2021 - what are the trends so far this year and what do they mean? 

The transition off LIBOR at the the end of 2021 may seem like old news, but there are many issues banks needs to address ... and time is running short.