ABA Banking Journal Podcast

Chief Diversity Officer Monica Sylvain discusses IberiaBank’s approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, including: having a DE&I council comprising a broad cross-section of employees at all levels of the organization; educating the bank’s leadership team—and its employees—on recognizing and understanding unconscious bias; and the importance of including supplier diversity, as well as employee diversity, in the bank’s DE&I framework.

Karen Shaw Petrou of Federal Financial Analytics discusses her recent paper on whether credit unions are succeeding in their statutory mission to serve customers of “small means”—and what it means for the growing problem of economic inequality. Among other topics, she discusses the lack of metrics collected or disseminated by the National Credit Union Administration on credit unions’ statutory mission and how efforts to measure this performance are complicated by NCUA’s expansive definition of “

At the end of June, the U.S. economy will tie its longest period of postwar expansion — but risks to the downside are growing, according to ABA’s Economic Advisory Committee. What effects could trade conflicts, a global slowdown and falling business investment have on overall growth? EAC Chairman and Comerica Bank Chief Economist Robert Dye joins us for a brief conversation on the economic outlook for the remainder of 2019 and beyond.

CEO Brad Paige talks about “the first security enhancement that we’ve done that actually improved the customer experience.” The enhancement: digital voice authentication. By recording 30-45 seconds of audio, customers can opt in and create a unique voice print. Then, when they call, they can be authenticated within two to three seconds, Paige says. With more than 1,400 customers signed up, the customer feedback has been good and the bank has stopped multiple fraud attempts.

As banks across the country mark American Housing Month in June, the ABA Banking Journal Podcast sat down with Michael Petrie, who leads one of the nation’s largest affordable housing lenders. With affordable homes accounting for 40% of Merchants Bancorp’s originations through its bank and nonbank subsidiaries, Petrie discusses Merchants’ nonprofit affiliate, its charter strategy, the state of the real estate market and its workforce development approach.

Launched by the Clearing House and live since 2017, the RTP network is currently racing to connect as many U.S. depository institutions to the first U.S. real-time payments system. James Aramanda and Rob Nichols discuss RTP’s commitment to serve all financial institutions with flat pricing and no volume discounts; RTP's work with core processors to accelerate adoption by 2020; and why banks should consider joining RTP now, even if the Fed develops its own faster payments system.

Greg Carmichael entered the banking industry as a mid-career technology executive, and that’s shaped his perspective on the challenges facing banks today. “Financial services was ripe for the opportunity to use technology different to change the business model,” he says. The chairman and CEO of Fifth Third Bank discusses the company's strategic investments, his "buy-partner-build" approach, creative consumer financial products and the imperative of financial inclusion.

With leveraged lending-related risk on regulators’ minds — and on the agenda of the House Financial Services Committee tomorrow — we discuss the issue with ABA Senior Economist Curtis Dubay. He explains how the leveraged loan market works, why banks are not heavily exposed, why the investment vehicles that hold most leveraged loans are safer today and why today’s leveraged lending sector is not expected to channel systemic risk in the same way as subprime real estate loans before the financial crisi

On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Minnesota community bank CEO Bryan Bruns talks about what community banking looks like in his market, his bank’s recent anniversary and his role as a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Community Banker Advisory Board.

“Customer experience is really the only durable or sustainable differentiator in our industry,” says Rodney Shepard who was recently promoted to be Arvest Bank’s first-ever chief customer experience officer. Shepard discusses how he “champions the customer inside our organization,” focusing on the integrated digital, in-branch and call center experience—flagging potential pain points and learning from other industries that do customer experience well.

The ABA Core Platforms Committee—a group of 20 bank leaders representing community and midsize banks—yesterday met with top executives from four of the nation’s largest core processing firms. During the meeting, the bankers shared their concerns on three key issues—data access, API deployment and contract fairness—with FIS, Fiserv, Jack Henry and Finastra. In this bonus episode, committee Chairman Julieann Thurlow discusses the meeting and next steps.

To mark National Senior Fraud Awareness Day on May 15, Scott Dueser of First Financial Bank talks about the growing scourge of frauds and scams targeting seniors, how his bank partners successfully to intercept fraud before it happens and what red flags bank staff need to look for in a potential fraud scenario—especially when the senior might be victimized by a caregiver or family member.

Christie Obenauer’s family-owned bank had a problem. Based in a rural county in western North Dakota, her community had been dealing with the prospect of population decline, but then the North Dakota energy boom brought an influx of newcomers. “It’s a wonderful problem to have.” With a need for housing that could be deployed quickly, she also worked with the Bank of North Dakota and a state agency to develop a secondary market for manufactured homes.

“If you’re in Midland, Texas, you’re in the oil business,” says Jay Isaacs. “It doesn’t matter if you have a doughnut shop or a dry cleaners.” Isaacs is president of FirstCapital Bank of Texas, and he talks about how his bank manages the unique challenges and opportunities faced by banks in the oil patch. Isaacs says FirstCapital Bank focuses on lending to independent oil and gas producers, which he describes as safer than lending to drilling companies and oilfield services.

Just 25% of Americans say they have quite a lot or a great deal of confidence in big business, according to a 2018 Gallup survey. But in his newest book, Big Business, prominent economist and bestselling author Tyler Cowen suggests in this bonus episode that Americans should have a much greater appreciation for the role of large firms, including large banks.