One of the truly sad consequences of the Covid-19 shutdown is the cancellation of the University of Colorado’s Graduate School of Banking 2020 session. This is one of my favorite events every year, and I revel in the opportunity to meet with and instruct future banking leaders in the areas of technology, payments and innovation. […]
Tag Archives: banking
No Banking Relationship? Perhaps No PPP For You!
As COVID-19 rages throughout the world, our executive and legislative branches are working together (as best as they can, given the toxic environment in D.C.) to provide relief for American businesses. One of the elements of the recently passed $2 trillion relief package is a forgivable loan for small businesses. Called the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), […]
Innovation? That’s Someone Else’s Job…
I recently read an article posted on PYMNTS.com about innovation that caught my attention. The article was an excerpt of a new study conducted by PYMNTS.com about financial institutions’ readiness for innovation. You can read the article here. Some 200 bank executives were interviewed. Here are a couple of stats from the article: 78% of […]
Being Strategic by Improving the Customer Experience
The issue of how you can improve the customer experience cannot be adequately covered in a few hundred words. Let me give two examples, one dealing with the digital / online experience and one dealing with the physical branch. If you are like most FIs, you have multiple online banking systems. Typically, you would have […]
Being Strategic by Reducing Operating Costs
What are the activities that a typical business customer of yours engages in that mostly manually and cost-intensive? Don’t know? It’s likely that, as bankers, we don’t spend much time thinking about the internal cost of our business customers. But there are areas in which an FI has a direct opportunity to reduce costs for […]
Why Banking is Failing at Cross-Selling Fee Services
I recently read an article from The Financial Brand outlining the problems financial institutions have in cross-selling services with associated fees. The article compares data from Amazon Prime sales to the lack of success FIs have had in selling fee-based services. They found, even when Amazon raised the price for the Prime service, subscribership increased. […]
Best Bank in Valdosta … and Not Just Cause I’m Sayin’ It
I referenced my bank, Citizens Community Bank (CCB) in a recent blog post discussing how difficult it is to be a bank. Many non-banks wanting to offer financial services find that existing rules and regulations make it difficult to do so. However, CCB performs a wide variety of banking services with a perfect blend of […]
If Banking Was So Easy, Everyone Would Already Be Doing It: Part 2
If you have read my recent post on banking with online non-banks (if you haven’t, it can be found here), a good follow up to it would be a recent article from The Financial Brand, “Eight Challenger Banks Traditional Banks Should Worry About.” I would highly encourage you to read the article before continuing to […]
Branch of the Future? I Hope Not!
I was in Atlanta, Georgia, for a series of business meetings, and happened to be at a trendy restaurant near the Federal Reserve Bank in Midtown. My breakfast meeting was ending, and as we were discussing the state of branch transformation in financial institutions, my guest suggested I check out the new Bank of America […]
Innovative Thinking and… CDs?
I work primarily with financial institutions, which are nothing if not bound by tradition. The basics of banking have remained virtually unchanged in the last 50 years. As I speak on innovation at many of the nation’s state banking associations, I am insistent that bankers must change their thinking about their products and services and […]