The Banker Next Door

The FDIC released a report titled “Dissecting Depositor Flight: An analysis of the Spring 2023 Bank Failures.” This report is about the three regional banks that failed during the Spring banking crisis of 2023. The three banks in question include Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank (FRB). This report sought to examine the deposit flow of each back and attempts to det...

Banks are constantly challenged in the fintech era, not with loosing accounts, but with maintaining day-to-day financial engagement. Consumers continue to diversify away from bank offerings to multiple fintech platforms, mainly for P2P payments and digital wallets. Bank’s share of the financial relationship with fintechs is shrinking. Speed, flexibility, and control are the main items that custome...

Bank News: Standard Charter CEO Bill Winters apologized for his ‘lower-value human capital’ remarks that he made about his employees. Flagstar CEO Joseph Otting will stay until 2028 when a successor will be named. Federal Reserve and FDIC approve US banks’ living wills. Senator Warren wants charter details from OCC. Jay Gould justifies conditional trust charter approvals. Senator Warren questions...

The CAMELS rating system is used by bank regulators to assess a financial institution. The rating system evaluates six key factors – capital adequacy, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity, and sensitivity. Banks are then rated on a scale of 1 (Best) to 5 (Worst). This scale helps examiners to determine which banks require closer supervision because of poor performance. The CAMELS framewo...

What has AI unleashed on the banking industry? Anthropic’s development of Mythos has sent shockwaves through banking executives. Palo Alto Networks tech chief Lee Klarich sees a small window before hackers begin to use programs like Mythos to launch attacks against software vulnerabilities. Banks should consider this a wake-up call. Think about your current platforms and technology stacks. Conside...

Customers Bank CEO Sam Sidhu caused quite a stir when he used an AI clone for the first 25 minutes of the bank’s most recent earnings call to provide prepared remarks. Mr. Sidhu was trying to display how adept the bank has become at using AI technology. Mr. Sidhu showed how the bank has been able to deploy AI and decrease the efficiency ratio from 62% in 2024 to 49% in 2026. Mr. Sidhu is also hopi...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on May 24, 2026. The American citizen is revolting against AI. From the job losses to the data centers being put in our back yards to the amount of overall danger posed from this new technology, Americans are pushing back. President Trump pulled his executive order on AI due to a split in his administration over how tightly AI development sh...

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 Financial Stability Report is the Fed’s current assessment of the stability of the U.S. financial system. The Fed seeks to assess vulnerabilities using four broad categories, which include asset valuations, borrowing by businesses and households, leverage in the financial sector, and funding risks. Asset valuations remain elevated. Vulnerabilities from business and household debt remained mode...

With Jerome Powell existing and Kevin Warsh coming in as the new Fed Chair, he must walk a tight rope across an already strenuous economy. Is the situation hopeless? This seems a fair question given that any action the Fed takes could lead to dire circumstances. Inflation remains elevated, fiscal debt and deficits are out of control, yields are rising in the bond market to compensate for these ris...

Jerome Powell’s tenure as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is coming to an end after 8 years. What has he left us? To say he has left us a mess would be an understatement. The Fed has lost approximately $240B in the last three years. The Fed has unrealized losses in their bond portfolio around $1T. Inflation remains well above the Fed 2% target. Powell has NEVER brought inflation below 2% in hi...

Bank News: Fintech company Parker files for bankruptcy. JPMorgan is investing $14M in anti-fraud projects. White House names John Crews to NCUA board. Credit Union membership growth returns to positive territory in 1Q 2026. Payward, the parent company of Kraken, is seeking to get a bank charter from the OCC. Augustus Bank receives conditional charter approval from the OCC. Stellantis follows Ford...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on May 16, 2026. This is an update on Private Credit. Private Equity has a problem as the industry has a glut of over $3 trillion in companies that need to be offloaded from their portfolios. PE net asset values are also being called into question. This leads us to Blue Owl. The valuation of their funds is coming into question. The Private C...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on May 16, 2026. Rents for apartments are down for the 33rd straight month. April home sales disappointed. Only 11% of new construction is in urban areas. The majority of newly built residential homes are in the suburbs. If you do want to build a new house in an urban area the cost is very high. According to research from the National Associ...

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 semiannual OCC report on risks to the U.S. banking system found that bank financials remain sound but risks around cyber threats and fraud continue to be a concern.  Bank earnings, balance sheets, liquidity, and capital levels remain strong by historical standards. Credit risk is manageable but there are concerns such as the maturity wall and private credit. Past-due, nonaccrual, and charge-of...

The Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) for April 2026 examines how bank senior lenders are feeling about loan demand and lending standards. This report is released on a quarterly basis. The report found tighter lending standards for C&I loans. Unchanged standards and weaker demand for CRE loans. Unchanged or easier terms for almost all loan policies across CRE loan cate...

Bank news: Failed Oklahoma Bank, First National Bank of Lindsey, ex-CEO Danny Seibel plead guilty to bank fraud and now faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. Cambridge Savings Bank has agreed to acquire First Seacoast Bank in an $80 million deal. BayFirst Bank makes a change at CEO and carries out an $80 million dollar capital raise. U.S. Bank takes a quieter approach to b...

Problems in the Private Credit Market continue to unfold as banks are now tightening lending standards around Nondepository Financial Institutions (NDFIs). As this is happening, Apollo Global Management is trying transparency by offering their investors daily valuations for their private-credit funds starting at the end of September. Most funds provide this information on a quarterly basis. Apollo...

China’s economy has been dealing with a number of issues over the last few years. Mainly a real estate bubble collapse and trade issues with the U.S. These issues are spilling over into the banking system in the form of rural banks. Forced mergers are being used to stem potential chaos. The banks being rolled up are known as “village and township banks”. Years of weak oversight, low capital, and r...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on May 9, 2026. The White House is starting to change its tune on how it deals with AI. We have moved from full steam ahead to hold up, wait a minute, something ain’t right! Mythos has the Pentagon circling the wagons and the White House putting together a new executive order on AI. Meanwhile on the banking front, Jamie Dimon has his concern...

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.

Community Bank & Trust became the second bank failure of 2026 and the first bank failure in the state of Georgia in 10 years. Community Bank and Trust – West Georgia was closed by the FDIC on May 1, 2026. The bank had $288 million in assets as of December 31, 2025. The Federal Reserve had ordered the holding company of the bank to bolster board oversight and increase its capital position in Ap...

U.S. bank capital offerings were down 35.7% from the same period one year ago but increased 125.7% compared to the previous quarter. On the equity side, there was a surge in preferred equity offerings, but this was mainly attributed to a large offering from Wells Fargo. Common equity offerings continued to be subdued. On the debt side, senior debt issuance was the largest component at $23.88B. How...

Ford & GM are still recovering from major EV related losses, but Ford is seeking to create a midsize EV pickup truck for $30k. Meanwhile, dealerships are struggling with supply shortages due to a lack of aluminum. Carmakers are really counting on tariff refunds and service revenue to carry them due to a lack of sales. Despite these issues, local mom-and-pop car dealerships continue to consolid...