The Purposeful Banker

Stimulus measures early in the pandemic injected massive amounts of liquidity into the economy. Meanwhile, businesses feeling the uncertainty of the market have opted to park that money for now at their banks. What are banks doing with this glut of deposits? And does this mean they may actually turn away future deposits?  

In PrecisionLender's annual survey, commercial bankers gave their views about the impact of 2020 events and the outlook for 2021. In this episode, we compare those survey responses to real-life banker behaviors. 

Taking a look at the reasons why commercial loan growth may be tough to achieve in 2021, but also ways banks can overcome those obstacles. 

Taking a look at PrecisionLender's two new products - Portfolio Insights and Market Insights - and how they help commercial bankers make better data-driven pricing decisions.

PPP is back ... and more complex than ever. Dallas Wells walks us through the various programs and explains what's at stake this time around for commercial banks.

Gita Thollesson joins the podcast to give a sneak peek at a few of the findings she'll share in her upcoming State of Commercial banking webinar. 

2021 will present a lot of challenges for commercial banks, but there are ways that banks can improve their revenue performance. We offer a few suggestions in this week's podcast. 

A look at the all-important quest for banks to be the primary option for customers. We'll explore the reasons why that goal is getting harder and harder to achieve.

How are banks responding after 9 months of the pandemic? We look at two particular areas - provisioning and bad loan sales, in which bank actions seem to tell two very different stories.

How have banks' responses to the pandemic affected the loyalty of their commercial customers? Chris McDonnell shares some eye-opening findings from Greenwich Associates' research. 

The Aite Group's Christine Barry on what commercial banks should look for when adding cash management technology and how lenders can better cross-sell cash management and treasury services. 

What do the results from Bank Director's annual technology survey tell us about how banks are viewing technology and their ability/willingness to invest in it during a pandemic? 

Former BankOnPurpose keynote speaker Bob Moesta talks about  the principals of demand-side sales, and how they can be applied by commercial bankers. 

The banking industry is much stronger now than it was the last time the U.S. economy had a significant downturn. So why isn't that being reflected in the stock prices of publicly traded banks? 

In this episode we look at how banks should handle tricky budget questions during COVID-19. Forecasting future revenues and expenses is tough even in the best of times for banks, but the current pandemic has added an extra layer of difficulty.

Amidst all the challenges facing commercial banks during the pandemic, there also looms a problem on the approaching horizon - can they meet regulators' deadline to switch from LIBOR to SOFR? A look at the issues involved and whether the deadline is realistic.

The hotel industry has been one of the hardest hit sectors of the economy during the pandemic. What does that mean for the banks that have lent money to hotels? And what methods are banks using to give hotels time to regain their financial footing? 

A banking CEO recently made some scathing public comments about CECL. Is his view widespread? And what's at the root of dissatisfaction with the accounting standard? 

PrecisionLender's Gita Tholleson, author of the recent report "Risk Levels and Bank Behaviors During COVID-19" joints the podcast to discuss her findings. 

With risk mitigation on the minds of commercial bankers everywhere, it's time to look at how they're measuring risk - and where those ratings might be coming up short. 

With COVID-19 forcing banks to support a remote workforce, and to rapidly process PPP applications, have commercial banks reached a point where digital transformation moves from "innovative" to "expected"? 

Commercial banks are out of survival mode and have at least grown accustomed to life with COVID-19. There's time now for them to ask "Okay, what's next?" We discuss some options in this episode.

As commercial banks step up efforts to mitigate risk, they worry about RMs that might ignore the rules and guidelines. Is their concern valid or should they focus risk-reduction efforts elsewhere?

What's it like for commercial RMs in the midst of their first financial crisis? And how should banks handle difficult workout conversations with clients? 

Many banks are trying to reduce risk by only allowing senior execs to make all key commercial lending decisions. Is that approach actually having the opposite effect?