Creating a Fourth Quarter Emphasis on Growth
In years past, by September senior bankers seemed to be focusing more on planning for the following year than exploring how to get more revenues during the few months that…
To Survive, Smaller Banks Need to Emulate the Big Players
In our last newsletter we focused on why smaller banks risk losing out to larger competitors. The reasons for this significant threat result from the combined impact of current management…
Big Can Be Better: Why Smaller Banks Risk Losing to Larger Competitors
The quote accompanying this article (“A lot of customers think it is easier to work with a small bank, but it really is not.”) repeats the comment of a business…
Maintaining and Growing Deposits in a Higher Rate Environment
The higher rate environment is resulting in banks placing increased focus on deposit retention and generation. Last week’s Wall Street Journal highlighted what it viewed as the negative…
Making the Branch Work for Small Business
We started working in the small business space over ten years ago. I remember a conversation from that time with a Fleet Bank small business executive who was bemoaning how…
Look at Middle Market Banking . . . Again
Mid-year 2006 provides a good opportunity for bank executives to review the status and performance of their bank’s middle market group. Banks concerned about lower than expected revenue numbers or…
Six Innovations in Small Business Banking
Our last two newsletters discussed the challenges that banks face in promoting innovative thinking and approaches. In short, at most banks, multiple internal factors conspire to limit innovation. Nonetheless, despite…
Promoting Innovation in Banking
Our last newsletter, titled “Why Banks Can’t Innovate,” built off a Business Week article that listed a number of criteria common to companies (for example, Apple, Google, and Toyota) emphasizing…
Why Banks Can’t Innovate
The current Business Week magazine features an article by Jena McGregor titled, “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” and lists the top 25 innovators based upon a survey of over 1,000…
Fixing Banker Productivity
In the last 45 days, I have met with bank managers in India, Australia, New Zealand, London, and, much closer to home, California, Ohio, Connecticut, and New York. These bankers,…