ABA Banking Journal Podcast

How can community banks make wealth management a profitable part of their strategy? At Canandaigua National Bank and Trust in New York, 45% of the bank’s non-interest income—and 15% of the bank’s total revenue—comes from wealth management, says EVP Sam Guerreri. He explains the bank’s strategy for wealth management by embedding it with the core banking business with a focus on holistic financial planning.

Next week, the House is expected to vote on two ABA-backed, bipartisan bills to modernize the anti-money laundering/Bank Secrecy Act regime. The House vote continues what has been a busy fall on BSA reforms. In this episode, ABA’s policy team breaks down legislative developments in the House and Senate and what they will mean for compliance and financial crimes professionals, as well as anticipated changes from federal regulators and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

As incoming chairman of ABA’s Government Relations Council, Dan Robb has a lead role in shaping the industry's voice to Congress. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast—sponsored by Money Concepts International—Robb discusses the future of the community bank model, top policy priorities for the banking industry in 2020, communicating the importance of FDIC insurance in a new era of disintermediated payments and his approach to advocacy on Capitol Hill.

Ryan James became one of the youngest bank CEOs in the country when he took the helm of Surety Bank in 2009, in the midst of the fallout from the 2009 financial crisis. James explains how he and his team led Surety Bank through the post-crisis period and positioned it for success in 2019 with a focus on digital transformation. He also talks about Surety Bank’s transition to an emerging cloud-based core provider and the launch of the company’s Booyah! Bank digital brand.

On Sept. 25, the House passed a landmark cannabis bill: the SAFE Banking Act, which would provide clarity to banks seeking to serve legitimate marijuana businesses. In this bonus episode, ABA’s policy team breaks down: the significance of the House vote, which carried with an overwhelming bipartisan majority; the mechanics of how the SAFE Banking Act address the conflict between federal and state laws over cannabis; and the outlook for cannabis legislation in the Senate and ABA’s continued advocacy.

ABA accounting experts Michael Gullette and Joshua Stein discuss the potential competitive effects of an extended period where some banks are on the Current Expected Credit Loss standard and others are not; concerns about the lack of readiness among auditors on CECL; the risk of CECL’s reliance on lagging indicators that amplify the standard’s procyclicality; the chances of a CECL delay for all institutions, as ABA has urged; and CECL challenges they heard from community bank CFOs at ABA’s CFO Excha

The mindset of bank compliance officers is shifting to focus on how they can support product innovation and change management, applying their expertise in regulations and process management ultimately to accelerate the innovation process. Kevin Georgetti explains that compliance professionals “want to be there at the beginning of a process, so as we go through this world where we want to push products through very quickly, we can have that speed. If you’re up front, you can go quicker.”

Allison Schrager’s career as an economist and journalist seeking to understand financial risk has taken her from Nevada’s legal brothels and Kentucky stud farms to surfing conventions in Hawaii and the world of the New York paparazzi. On the latest episode—sponsored by RIVIO Clearinghouse—the author of the recent book An Economist Walks into a Brothel and Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk shares her unique perspective on how bankers can help their customers better understand risk.

“We just never felt like we wanted to join that rhetoric of sameness,” Tim Marshall says of his marketing approach at Bank of Ann Arbor. On the season three premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Rivio, the future of financial information interchange — Marshall discusses Bank of Ann Arbor’s vision for the community bank customer experience and the bank’s unique approach to communicating with present and future customers.

In 2019, a unique financial institution marks its centennial: the Bank of North Dakota, America's only state-owned and state-run bank. Part Federal Reserve, part economic development agency and part bankers’ bank, BND was spawned as a prairie populist reaction to a very different economic and social milieu. This episode, however, explores how BND's successes came when it decided to prioritize partnership with private-sector institutions, eschewing politics for pragmatism.

Few experts are as deeply immersed in both financial regulation and advanced computing technologies than Gene Ludwig. The former comptroller of the currency talks about the current state of artificial intelligence in banking and the outlook for community banks and compliance professionals, including: the relative skills of AI versus humans; the continuing need for banking talent even as AI becomes better; and the role of AI in helping mitigate conduct risk.

Mark Haden talks about how Colorado National Bank developed a program to provide deposit services to cannabis-related customers in its home market of Denver. He discusses: his bank’s evaluation of FinCEN guidance on serving marijuana-related businesses; how the bank sweeps most marijuana-related deposits off its balance sheet; his bank’s enhanced monitoring system; and the importance of defining the kind of marijuana-related entities a bank might consider serving.

Natalie Bartholomew is chief administrative officer at Grand Savings Bank in northwestern Arkansas, but she is probably better known for her popular blog “The Girl Banker,” which provides advice on career advancement and work-life balance for women in banking as well as spotlighting female leaders in financial services. Bartholomew shares her perspective on building a personal brand as a banker, including through social media; the value of mentorship; and acknowledging the illusion of work-life balance.

As urban areas across the country grow and change, community development financial institutions like Metro Bank in Louisville, Ky., are meeting the unique needs of these evolving neighborhoods. Pedro Bryant discusses Metro Bank’s customized loans to churches, which provide critical funds to grow facilities and programs at organizations uniquely situated to support community revitalization, as well as key underwriting factors bankers should consider when lending to houses of worship.

Midsize banks are at an inflection point: their ranks are growing as banking sector consolidation continues, and while these banks are ramping up their risk and compliance functions, they don’t need the same kinds of programs as the largest banks. “The evolution is about right-sizing and making it our own,” says podcast guest Atul Malhotra of Fulton Financial in a wide-ranging discussion of enterprise risk management trends, issues and topics.