What Now in Banking SMEs?
Executive Summary: Management needs to make certain that its bankers continue to sell to small and mid-sized companies (SMEs) during what may be an extended period of increased concern over…
Simplify Products and Increase Transparency
Executive Summary: This is an era of customer and employee confusion resulting from product proliferation, regulatory demands for increased transparency, internal requirements for tighter risk management, and the need for…
Can Private Equity Save the Banks?
Executive Summary: Banks should be leading the effort to loosen regulations in order to encourage private equity firms to invest in banks. Not only is the infusion of capital important,…
"Linking" Across the Bank for Mass Affluent Growth
Executive summary: Bank management continues to miss opportunities to create fundamental linkages across the bank’s products and channels, missing growth opportunities in the mass affluent space. Banks often seem insensitive…
Roadmap for Success: Mediocre Employees, Smart Segmentation?
Executive Summary: Selecting the most appropriate market, product, and customer focus rather than picking the best and brightest employees may be the most critical element in a bank’s success. …
Small Business Loans: Increasing Deterioration?
Executive Summary: Recent bank performance suggests that lenders need to revise some of their lending practices to small businesses and that relying on a “lending only” approach may be increasingly…
The Trust Factor and High-End Customers
Executive Summary: Banks continue to benefit from high levels of client trust. However, they are also facing an increasingly skeptical client base, particularly at the higher end. One challenge: how…
Doubling Profits: Capturing the Business and Its Owner
Executive Summary: While the current banking environment seems uncertain, attractive growth opportunities still exist for banks that address the needs of both the business owner and the business. A recent…
Account Alignment Results in Near-Term Profits
Executive Summary: Banks can generate increased profits in the near term by more effectively aligning their current customers with the optimal sales and service channels. All areas of a bank…
Banks and Selling: Clueless – Part II
Executive Summary: Reader response to our last newsletter’s focus on the challenges that banks face in selling underscores that no easy solutions are likely, particularly without banks changing their hiring…