The ABA
2013 conference in New Orleans has just drawn to a close. Banks are bouncing back!
Most of
the attendees were C-Level execs from small, community banks with assets of
<$1B and they were mostly from the Southeast given that the venue was New
Orleans this year.
Dodd-Frank
is in the midst of being fully implemented with tighter lending guidelines for
QM or Qualified Mortgages hitting in Jan 2014, however, the head of the CFPB
stated that there would be a gradual easing in of the guidelines with little to
no litigation in the first few months.
The bottom line for the small banks was that if they have a
traditionally good track record making loans in their markets with acceptable
loss rates, this new legislation should have little or no impact. The reaction of the CEO's ranged however from
from activist "we should show up with thousands to march on
Washington" to more resigned "let's not dwell on the regulation but
focus on our business."
The
attitudes of the CEO's matched almost exactly the geographies from which they
hail. The West Coast CEO focusing on a
vibrant, young work force, the East Coast bank implementing new technology but
only to the extent that it would pay off with its specific customer profile. The CEO from a deep south bank explained how
his bank's branches had been "slabbed" during Katrina, a verb meaning
completely demolished save the cement slab upon which the building used to
sit. But the employees were at work the
next day at fold-out tables doing business, ultimately handing out up to $100M
total in cash to bank customers needing money to evacuate immediately. I'm not sure what was more moving - the image
of employees at those tables in front of their erstwhile branches, or the news
that the bank experienced less than 1% loss from this cash handout despite the
complete lack of ID validation.
"How can you force someone to produce ID, when you can plainly see
that they 'swam' out of their house this morning." This, said the CEO, is proof positive that we
are still a nation of trustworthy individuals.
This particular bank has expanded rapidly since Katrina, capturing a
double digit increase in market share right after the storm. How's that for a positive customer experience?
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