Amid tariff-related volatility, how are small and midsize businesses and the banks that serve them faring? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — John Buran, the president and CEO of Queens-based Flushing Financial discusses how tariff and trade policy-related volatility has compounded commercial client uncertainty based on interest rates over recent months and why uncertainty has slowed loan growth and investment.

However, Buran also notes that lending has improved in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, “possibly associated with the Fed keeping rates stable since the middle of the middle of last year. So I think that has helped somewhat. Banks are staying very close to their customers . . . so that they can come out the on other side in a favorable position.”

Buran also discusses opportunities for community banks to gain market share in the New York City metro area real estate market and the potential for regulatory change under newly confirmed Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman.

Jim Ryan has led Old National Bank through a massive wave of growth — through major mergers and organic growth, the Evansville, Indiana-based bank has reached $70 billion in assets and a footprint that extends from Minnesota to Tennessee. The bank has grown by 250% since Ryan moved into the CEO role in 2019. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — Ryan discusses:

• The bank’s growing profile, including its new marketing partnership with the on-fire Indiana Fever.
• Why the bank remains committed to its hometown of Evansville, even as it grows into a more expansive regional bank.
• His views on deposit insurance reform and areas other areas of focus as chair of the American Bankers Council, ABA’s peer group for midsize bank CEOs.

Ryan also discusses the experience of leading Old National through the devastating mass shooting at a Louisville, Kentucky, bank branch in 2023 — a tragedy that claimed the lives of 5 victims, all of them bank employees. “We always felt like we were a family, but that definition of family was completely reinforced,” he says. “After you go through a tragedy like that, it takes a lot of love, it takes a lot of support, and it takes a lot of care.”

Legislators and regulators are strongly focused on policy related to payment stablecoins, most recently with the passage of the Genius Act in the Senate Banking Committee. On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by nCino — ABA’s Brooke Ybarra and Kirsten Sutton discuss the current policy and technology landscape on stablecoins. Among other topics, they talk about:

• How stablecoins work and why people are interested in this kind of digital asset.
• Use cases for payment stablecoins, such as cross-border payments.
• Challenges that stablecoins may pose for today’s anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act framework.
• The outlook in Congress for the Stable Act in the House and the Genius Act in the Senate and what these bills would do.
• Key principles for thinking about stablecoins, including economic effects, disintermediation of financial institutions, regulatory arbitrage and consumer protection.
• How ABA is engaging on Capitol Hill and with regulatory agencies on stablecoin issues.

The big story of check fraud is not only its vast cost to the country and to individual victims, but simply the remarkable rate at which it is increasing. On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by nCino — we bring you a conversation from the ABA Fraudcast with ABA’s Paul Benda and Caitlin Piasecki of the United States Postal Inspection Service the enormous scale and challenge of addressing mail theft, a common venue for criminals to access paper checks.

Piasecki describes how the internet serves as a perfect sharing and recruiting platform for criminals aiming to get their hands on as many paper checks as possible. Encrypted platforms are where criminal organizations in New Jersey can easily connect with those operating in Los Angeles, she notes. “We have seen a huge influx in the complex nature these investigations have taken, where previously it was a local group in a local area,” she says.

A century ago, in March 1925, Charles G. Dawes was sworn in as vice president of the United States. Being elected vice president of the United States — as Dawes was, alongside Calvin Coolidge, in a landslide — is usually a career pinnacle for an American politician, but Dawes’ vice presidency turned out to be more of a footnote in his eventful life. In the second part of this two-part podcast series — presented by nCino — Dawes biographer Annette Dunlap explores Dawes’ service as head of logistics for the American Expeditionary Force in World War I (an organizational feat never before pulled off in American military history), his work in international diplomacy during the 1920s, his vice presidency under Calvin Coolidge and how he engineered a bailout for his troubled bank in the throes of the Great Depression.

A century ago, in March 1925, Charles G. Dawes was sworn in as vice president of the United States. Being elected vice president of the United States — as Dawes was, alongside Calvin Coolidge, in a landslide — is usually a career pinnacle for an American politician, but Dawes’ vice presidency turned out to be more of a footnote in his eventful life. In the first part of this two-part podcast series — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Dawes biographer Annette Dunlap walks listeners through Dawes’ early life, his big ideas in banking and his service as comptroller of the currency, and how he built up Chicago as a regional banking center. At this centennial moment, and in this 150th anniversary year for ABA, it’s worth reflecting on the fascinating and complex life of Charley Dawes.

In rural southeastern New Mexico, bank CEO and varsity bowling coach Ken Clayton often takes his team on 500-mile one-day roundtrips for bowling tournaments. For Clayton, that commitment to going the distance is also what community banking is about. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Clayton discusses what makes community banks like his tick.

And as chair of ABA’s Government Relations Council, he also talks about ABA’s legislative and regulatory priorities for the year ahead, including tax reform and Subchapter S, regulatory challenges like the Section 1071 final rule, the SAFER Banking Act, credit card interchange policy and more. For Clayton’s 22-employee bank, policy challenges hit home in a challenging way since he and his CFO also share duties as the bank’s compliance officers. “As a banker, don’t just sit at home and say, ‘Gee, I wish this was different,'” Clayton says. “Get involved. It’s very rewarding, not to mention that it helps your customer and it helps your community.”

Clayton also discusses his own career journey in banking, his home community of Artesia and his approach to developing leaders within his bank.

• Read the ABA Blueprint for Growth.
• Register for the Washington Summit.

A recent article in the New York Times — “Love and Money: Why Sharing Accounts Is Good for Your Relationship” — explores scholarly evidence for the benefits of couples’ combining their bank accounts. The article features the insights of Indiana University marketing professor Jenny Olson, who appeared in 2023 on the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. For a special Valentine’s Day episode, we bring back that classic podcast episode — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — in which Olson discusses her research on joint accounts and couples’ well-being.

Olson and her colleagues randomly assigned new couples to one of three conditions for a two-year period: using only separate accounts, using a joint account only or to a third group that received no instructions about the kind of accounts to use. Couples in the no-instruction group and the separate account group saw declines in relationship quality during the experiment, couples with joint accounts were “buffered” against the declines otherwise expected, she says.

“Because we randomly assigned couples, we can take better steps toward understanding causality,” Olson says. “Our results really do suggest that having a joint bank account improves relationship quality.” While every couple’s financial needs are unique and separate accounts may be what’s needed in many situations, Olson discusses implications of the research for how bankers and wealth managers approach financial planning conversations with clients.

• Read the paper by Olson et al. in the Journal of Consumer Research.

This episode is presented by R&T Deposit Solutions.

On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — ABA’s Jeff Huther and Sharon Whitaker rebut a false narrative about how banks are managing commercial real estate credit risk. Expanding on a rebuttal to a New York Fed paper, they explore why measures of distress and undercapitalization used by the New York Fed and some in the media are inconsistent with common definitions and ignore bank-borrower relationships, accounting principles and valuation techniques.

“We’re now almost three years past the last shock to the sector, and people have had a lot of time to kind of think through how to deal with this and what the implications are for credit risk,” says Huther. “We’re in a situation where ” extending and pretending” is just not the right way to describe the condition and market.”

• Read the ABA DataBank post.

Today's episode features a crossover from ABA's brand new podcast series: ABA Fraudcast: Cyber and Fraud with Paul Benda. Community banks can be targets of large-scale fraud, just like larger banks. On the inaugural episode of the ABA Fraudcast, former ABA Chair Dan Robb, president and CEO of Jonesburg State Bank in Missouri, describes the recent targeting of his bank by fraudsters who texted thousands of residents of his community, seeking access to customer accounts. What followed for Robb and his team were fast lessons on all the areas his bank was prepared for, and a few challenges that were surprising. “We are no longer dealing with a mom-and-pop criminal,” says ABA’s Paul Benda, Fraudcast host. “This is institutional crime.”

To find the ABA Fraudcast, visit aba.com/fraudcast or look for it in your favorite podcast app.

From AI and crypto to complex regulatory challenges and increasingly diverse markets, bank executives face increasingly complex strategic decisions — and so do bank boards as they set and oversee the strategic direction for their banks. And yet, the average age of bank directors is 76, and many do not have expertise in these critical challenges affecting banks.

On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, veteran bank board members and executives Jenn Docherty and Virginia Varela discuss how bank boards can position their banks for success in a challenging environment. They discuss the importance of sourcing diverse expertise and how board members can start and lead difficult conversations about where their banks need to go, creating space for new ideas and giving management more flexibility  — and more incentives — to innovate.

Docherty and Varela will discuss these topics and more at the ABA Conference for Community Bankers, Feb. 16-18 in Phoenix.

In this holiday bonus episode — sponsored by TransUnion — host Evan Sparks digs into the Banking Journal archives to learn more about the “Christmas Club” savings vehicle, and what this financial product says about human psychology and behavioral economics.

This episode is presented by TransUnion.

So-called “First Amendment auditors” have long filmed themselves trying to provoke police and other public officials into stopping them from recording in public settings. Now, some auditors are targeting banks, filming for hours outside bank branches and seeking to goad bank employees into calling law enforcement. The latest episode — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — features tips from bankers and security professionals on how to handle a First Amendment auditor at a bank location while protecting bank employees and customers.

• Read more in the ABA Banking Journal.
• Access tips from ABA’s Bank Security Committee.

“Well, your money’s in Joe’s house, that’s right next to yours. And in the Kennedy House, and Mrs. Macklin’s house, and, and a hundred others. Why, you’re lending them the money to build, and then, they’re going to pay it back to you as best they can.”

Seventy-eight years ago, George Bailey memorably explained the operation of a mutual savings and loan to a national audience in It’s a Wonderful Life. But while today’s bankers understand mutuality, do today’s potential clients? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by TransUnion — bank leaders Gregg Tewksbury and Lori Dufficy discuss a new campaign, Mutuals Matter, that aims to educate consumers about mutual bank ownership. Among other things, they talk about:

• Why present, and future, customers need to be educated about the distinctive values of mutuality.
• How the campaign developed messaging that resonates with consumer.
• The role of the campaign in helping mutual bank employees understand their unique value proposition and take pride in their work.

This episode is presented by TransUnion.

• If you can’t see the audio player above, click here to listen to this week’s episode.
• View the campaign at MutualBanksMatter.com.
• Read more in the ABA Banking Journal about public opinion on mutuality.
• Register for the ABA Mutual Community Bank Conference, April 6-7 in Washington, D.C.

The rarely used Congressional Review Act provides an opportunity for Congress and the president to overturn regulatory rulemakings — and the GOP trifecta in 2025 will bring new regulations up for review. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by TransUnion — ABA experts Kirsten Sutton and Ginny O’Neill break down details about CRA that bankers need to know:

• Which rulemakings are subject to CRA disapproval resolutions — in financial services, principally Section 1033 and the newly finalized overdraft rule.
• How the GOP Congress might prioritize regulatory actions for CRA resolutions.
• The limitations on CRA and why, as Sutton says, “this is not a magic wand situation where Congress can just step in and CRA everything that we have a problem with.”

This episode is presented by TransUnion.

Saved by the bell? Millions of American businesses faced a January 1 deadline to register their beneficial owners with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — until a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction yesterday stopping FinCEN from enforcing the deadline. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by TransUnion — ABA experts Heather Trew and Jonathan Blum discuss:

• What bankers and their business clients need to know about the preliminary injunction and its provisions.
• How the preliminary injunction does not affect financial institutions’ customer due diligence requirements — even if businesses are not required to report their beneficial ownership information to FinCEN, banks are still obliged to collect it from clients as part of CDD.
• Potential ramifications for AML/BSA activities if the Corporate Transparency Act that authorized the BOI registry is found to be unconstitutional.
• How this and other cases challenging the BOI registry may shake out, as well as the range of views on Capitol Hill on where to go from here.
• How ABA is engaging with both the current Congress and administration, and will advocate with the next Congress and incoming presidential administration, on these issues.

This episode is presented by TransUnion.

Advertising jingles: corny or clever? “Imagine the repetition over years in a community that hears it regularly,” says Clark Hook of Financial Marketing Solutions. “It’s whether you love or hate jingles, you cannot deny the power of that mnemonic device to put attribution to the things you’re putting into the world.”

On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — we take a look at bank jingles past and present. Expert bank marketers discuss:

• How and why community banks still find value in their jingles.
• The use of “sonic branding” and audio signatures as an alternative to traditional sung jingles — and how that sonic branding builds on historically successful and long-running jingles.
• The role of music in memory and brand recognition.
• Where banks overseas are using jingles.
• The interesting intersections between bank marketing and pop music.

Read Craig Colgan’s recent article on bank jingles.

Middle market businesses don’t get the attention of the Fortune 500 or the love that small businesses get from policymakers, but these firms are still critical to the economy — accounting for a third of private-sector GDP and employing up to 50 million Americans.  On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — KeyBank commercial bank president Ken Gavrity discusses the outlook for the middle market, defined as businesses with annual revenues of $10 million to $1 billion. Among other topics, Gavrity discusses:

• Why middle market business leaders have grown more positive this fall about the outlook.
• How middle market firms’ cost control and resilience-building during the inflationary period position them well as rates begin to come down.
• The improvement in the talent outlook for middle market firms.
• How middle market businesses are prepared to capitalize on the efficiencies, including automation and AI, that they instilled in the past few years.
• How KeyBank integrates its commercial payments business with its middle market services.

This episode is presented by Agri-Access.

The Republican sweep of the presidency and Congress, with extremely narrow control of the House, sets up tax policy as a major issue in 2025. With many provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expiring at the end of next year and tax policy changes able to be passed on a simple-majority basis through budget reconciliation, bankers can expect to see tax policy front and center. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — ABA VP Joey Connor discusses what to expect from the tax policy debate in 2025, including:

• The priority of extending Section 199(a) provisions for Subchapter S banks.
• Potential approaches to paying for a multi-trillion-dollar tax package.
• Issues related to credit union taxation and the base erosion that accompanies CU purchases of community banks.
• A range of complex technical tax issues, including GILTI, BEAT and Pillar 2 changes.

With commodity prices falling and producer expenses rising, it’s a difficult moment for America’s agricultural economy. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — Dakota Mac loan production officer Caleb Hopkins discusses strategies ag lenders are using to support their clients through this cycle. As chair of ABA’s Agricultural and Rural Bankers Committee, Hopkins also provides a preview of the upcoming ABA Agricultural Bankers Conference.

This episode is presented by Agri-Access.

John Asbury didn’t need a new job in 2016, but when he saw an opportunity build something lost in the 1990s — what he calls “the great Virginia regional bank” — he took it. Eight years later, Richmond-based Atlantic Union Bank has more than tripled in size and is on track to reach nearly $40 billion in assets after completion of an announced acquisition of Sandy Spring Bank. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — AUB CEO Asbury talks about the transformation of the bank. He also discusses his agenda as the newly elected chair of the American Bankers Association, including advocating to remove arbitrary asset thresholds that distort banks’ strategic growth plans, his approach to leadership development at the bank and his commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

Crypto investment scams cost Americans billions of dollars. The scammers start small with confidence or romance scams and gradually work their way up to demanding ever larger “investments.” On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — officials from the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission break down how these scams work, typologies and red flags bankers should look out for and how banks can build proactive partnerships with law enforcement. They also discuss a new educational infographic on these scams produced jointly by the ABA Foundation and several government agencies.

How do community banks balance the need for cutting-edge technology and the human touch? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Pamela Montpelier of Ballston Spa National Bank talks about how a laser-like focus on customer experience can help drive growth. Among other topics, Montpelier discusses the use of AI-based tools to improve decision-making and help bank employees replace manual processes with time spent engaging clients. She also talks about her experience working with a variety of banks as a service provider executive, prior to which she was the youngest female bank CEO in Massachusetts.

As independently owned and operated small businesses, fast-food restaurant franchisees have unique business needs. They have mobile and often part-time workforces, complex inventory management and the constant challenge of managing both a small business and being the face of a major brand. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Bix2x — Wendell Bontrager talks about how Sonata Bank is working with this unique market segment.

For example, “we can come in at fractional costs to provide them things like telehealth, mobile phone insurance, pet insurance, in a way that is free to the employee but is done and sold through the franchisee,” says Bontrager. He outlines Sonata’s business of lending to “quick-service” restaurants, as they’re often called in the trade, paired with employee benefits, treasury management and a software-as-a-service platform for QSRs.

Bontrager also talks about the health of the Nashville, Tennessee, market where Sonata’s community bank franchise is headquartered and how the organization has been able to capture talent with hybrid and remote workplace offerings.

As president and CEO of $50 billion-plus BOK Financial, Stacy Kymes spends time thinking about the role of regional banks in the U.S. economy. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Kymes talks about how BOK Financial finds unique niches and meets the credit and capital market needs in its core mid-America markets. Among other topics, Kymes discusses:

• BOK Financial’s diversified business model that balances lending with fee businesses like an EFT network and treasury and wealth management.
• The role of Tulsa, Oklahoma-based BOK Financial in financing the energy economy.
• BOK Financial’s tribal banking programs in Oklahoma and New Mexico, including a unique mortgage loan product for tribal lands.
• The bank’s plans to grow share in core markets of Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas and Houston.
• BOK’s approach to talent management, recruitment and acquisition.
• The importance of having banks headquartered in “flyover states” that can meet the capital markets needs of large and middle-market firms.

Miami is often described as the northernmost city in Latin America, or sometimes as Latin America’s business capital. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Banesco USA President and CEO Cali Garcia-Velez discusses how he and his team are growing a Latin American banking franchise in South Florida and Puerto Rico. Among other topics, Garcia-Velez discusses:

• The origins of Banesco USA, which is an independent U.S.-chartered bank that is part of a franchise of other Banesco banks across the Americas.
• Banesco USA’s growth plans in the turbocharged South Florida market, including its pivot into C&I lending and residential mortgages to balance its commercial real estate portfolio.
• How Banesco USA’s loan growth was fueled by a capital award from the Treasury Department’s Emergency Capital Investment Program for minority depository institutions.
• His own journey as a banker, which included turnaround assignments at troubled banks in Puerto Rico.

Most bankers dread the thought of a core conversion, but once that decision is made, the process can open up new opportunities for strategic growth. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Webster Five CIO Kate Megraw discusses her bank’s conversion and what she learned. Among other topics, Megraw explains:

• How a new core met the business strategy needs of Massachusetts-based Webster Five.
• The process of developing an RFP, exploring models and working with a core selection consultant.
• The role of commercial client growth in driving the need for a new core platform.
• Challenges and successes experienced in the conversion process.

Megraw will join fellow Core Platforms Committee members to discuss conversions at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 27-29 in New York City.

As chief corporate responsibility officer for Webster Bank, Marissa Weidner works across the bank’s footprints and business lines to help advance the bank’s goals of financial empowerment. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Weidner discusses the many dimensions of how this takes shape at the northeastern regional bank. Among other topics, she explores:

• Webster’s focus on access to capital for small businesses, including those owned by minorities and women.
• How Webster designed its special-purpose credit program focused on homeownership.
• Webster’s innovative “finance labs,” built in partnership with local schools and nonprofit partners, to provide hands-on financial experience for young people from low-to-moderate-income areas.
• The role of Bank On accounts in Webster’s financial inclusion strategy.

Weidner also discusses her career journey — including experience in economic development, bank human resources and bank merger integration — that led her to her current role.

This episode is presented by Alkami.

Fraud is front and center for America’s banks, and on the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — ABA’s Paul Benda and Peter Cook discuss several recent initiatives taken by ABA to help banks tackle fraud from a variety of fronts.

• Benda discusses ABA’s recently expanded Fraud Contact Directory, which is free to all banks and now encompasses other forms of fraud to facilitate prompt claims.
• He also explores new tools banks are using to tackle rising fraud numbers.
• Meanwhile, Cook discusses the latest incarnation of ABA’s award-winning #BanksNeverAskThat anti-phishing campaign — returning for a fourth year in October and also free to all banks — and previews a new companion initiative, Practice Safe Checks, that educates consumers about how to avoid becoming unwitting victims of check fraud.

Earlier this week, VersaBank closed on its purchase of Stearns Bank Holdingford N.A., giving the Canadian point-of-sale lender a point of entry into the U.S. market. On the season eight premiere of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — VersaBank founder and CEO David Taylor discusses the bank’s growth plans in the United States.

Taylor also explores his career history in banking, the story of VersaBank as the first new bank to receive a license in Canada in 18 years, how the bank developed a deposit broker network in Canada, VersaBank’s point-of-sale lending strategy (and how it can acquire loans without any equity from the finance company), and VersaBank’s talent and culture.

This episode is presented by Alkami.

Consumers everywhere see and hear credit union marketing campaigns, from PenFed’s ubiquitous jingle to big stadium and Super Bowl sponsorship deals. In fact, according to a new ABA DataBank post from ABA’s Dan Brown and Robert Flock, credit unions spend more than double what comparable banks do on marketing as a percentage of net income.

But why do credit unions, which serve members from defined fields of membership, spend so much? On the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Brown and Flock break down the legislative and regulatory history of fields of membership and how the average credit union has more than doubled its “potential membership” since new rules were finalized in 2015, using their taxpayer subsidy to fuel growth via marketing rather than lower rates and costs for their members.

At the midpoint of the year, what’s the M&A outlook like for community banks? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA Banking Journal Contributing Editor Paul Davis discusses what he’s seeing with mergers and acquisitions and what to expect for the remainder of 2024.

Davis, the founder of the Bank Slate newsletter, also discusses what he’s hearing from banks about succession planning and talent and talks about budget forecasting, an area the Bank Slate is surveying bankers on for 2025.

On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA economist Jeff Huther discusses recent dynamics with the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, the “world’s most important number.” Huther delves into topics in his his new ABA DataBank essay, exploring how quantitative tightening has pushed SOFR toward the upper end of the Federal Open Market Committee’s rate target range, the effects of monetary policy mechanisms like the Overnight Reverse Repo Facility, and how banks and other SOFR users can manage volatility that may emerge in the rate.

To mark Independence Day this week, this classic replay episode of the ABA Banking Journal explores the role of banking and finance in the American Revolution and the founding era. John Steele Gordon is an acclaimed economic historian whose books include Hamilton’s Blessing, The Great Game and An Empire of Wealth; he is also the ABA Banking Journal’s “From the Vault” columnist. In this episode, Gordon discusses:

• How not having any chartered banks prior to 1782 put the United States at a disadvantage during the Revolution.
• Conversely, how the Bank of England was a “secret weapon” for Britain during the war.
• The role of patriotic financiers like Robert Morris in achieving U.S. victory.
• The debates over a central bank in the post-revolutionary period and how they contributed to the development of the Constitution.

Government-guaranteed lending requires special expertise and back-office functionality that grows increasingly expensive for smaller banks. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Bix2x — Chris Hurn and Jeremy Gilpin of Community Bankshares, a bank holding company in La Grange, Georgia, discuss how they are tackling that challenge.

“To start one of these departments is very expensive for a lot of rural banks and credit unions,” says Gilpin, “It’s very prohibitive to enter the market space if you are a rural bank or even in an urban market where you do you know, maybe 5, 10, 20 of these loans a year.”

Hurn and Gilpin are part of a team that has built Community Bankshares, parent of Community Bank and Trust of West Georgia, into a network of Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture lending subsidiaries that work on a nationwide basis. They developed a model that allows the “the holding company [to] serve as a source of strength for the bank, not just the other way around, which is typical,” says Gilpin. Gilpin and Hurn discuss the company’s role as a white label lender, referral lender, participation partner or servicer for smaller banks that want to connect their clients to guaranteed loans and the strength of the bank model for supporting these businesses and agricultural enterprises.

“We’re seeing banks that have never been scrutinized before for redlining and being told that they have risk that they have not before and risk in ways that they’ve never really viewed it before,” says Andrea Mitchell. “We’re in some new territory, and I think it’s important for CEOs to understand what their compliance officers and legal departments are seeing on the ground.”

In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Andrea Mitchell, a top fair lending attorney, reviews the latest trends in redlining enforcement. She reviews cases brought by the Justice Department, the importance of screening programs, planning for entering new markets, the role of peer analyses in managing redlining risk and the effects of redlining enforcement on M&A activity.

Mitchell also discusses the intersection of DOJ enforcement and prudential supervision, noting that “if your regulator thinks you’re doing very well, even in in terms of minority market lending, and is relying on your CRA rating, there’s nothing that prevents HUD or DOJ or other agencies from scrutinizing you.”

Brent Beardall thinks bankers need to be more comfortable with risk. “We’re not out there taking crazy risk, but my point is don’t be afraid to fail,” says the president and CEO of WaFd Bank, based in tech-focused Seattle. “If you’re going to fail: fail quickly, fail small. That’s the two requirements I have, because if you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough.”

In the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — Beardall discusses technology experiments that didn’t work, and those that did. He discusses the bank’s tech lab subsidiary Archway Software and its combined voice- and phone-based authentication for wire transfers.

Beardall discusses WaFd’s commercial real estate portfolio, which he notes is majority “stabilized multifamily, which is the safest asset class that we or any bank can make.” Office buildings — the most distressed CRE asset class — account for just 4% of WaFd’s portfolio, Beardall says, noting that CRE is a big and diverse sector beyond the office headlines.

Finally, Beardall talks about his remarkable personal story of surviving a deadly plane crash in early 2023. “You’re flying on a jet airplane to go to the Rose Bowl, and all of a sudden you go from being pretty good to fighting for your life and you realize just how vulnerable you are and how precious life is because it can change in a heartbeat,” he says. “People that I competed with, bankers that I would compete with, they set it all aside and said, “Let’s focus on helping each other.’ We have a lot more in common than we have in terms of differences, and let’s give equal weight to what we have in common and work together for the collective good.”

“I need people who understand technology and the business more than I need people who understand compliance,” says Greg Imm, who recently retired as chief compliance officer at M&T Bank. “I can teach them compliance. I cannot teach them technology. We are paying much more attention on what is going on in technology that never existed five, six years ago.”

The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — features part two of a two-part conversation with Imm and David Kelly, retiring chief risk officer at Denver-based FirstBank. At ABA’s Risk and Compliance Conference in Seattle, Kelly was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Risk, and Imm was honored with the Distinguished Service Award for Compliance.

In part two, Kelly and Imm discuss the role of technology in the compliance and risk disciplines, how they hire and coach talent, and their involvement with ABA and other professional development providers over their careers.

This episode is presented by Alkami.

• Listen to part one of this conversation.

In a time of heightened regulatory risk and business challenges, “that’s where the risk professionals become very important,” says David Kelly, CERP, who recently retired as chief risk officer at Denver-based FirstBank. “Those relationships across business lines, because the risk will flow across those business lines, and getting stakeholders together to have those conversations.”

The latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Alkami — features part one of a two-part conversation with Kelly and Greg Imm, the retired chief compliance officer at M&T Bank and Fifth Third Bank. At ABA’s Risk and Compliance Conference in Seattle, Kelly was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Risk, and Imm was honored with the Distinguished Service Award for Compliance.

In part one, Kelly and Imm discuss their experience across different institutions — Kelly spent most of his career at FirstBank, while Imm worked at numerous large and regional banks as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. They also discuss the evolving role of technology in risk and compliance professionals and how soft skills contribute to risk and compliance career development.

This episode is presented by Alkami.

On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — Anthony Sharett, president of Pathward N.A., discusses how his FDIC-insured bank works alongside depository institutions to expand offerings that enhance financial inclusion and reach the unbanked. Sharett discusses Pathward’s reloadable co-branded prepaid card business — which can help a bank offer a Bank On-certified account — as well as its gift card business line. Sharett discusses how Pathward uses a design thinking approach to work with its bank clients to “co-create” products. “There are lots of banks out there that are providing valuable services to customers, providing solutions, providing products that they need, but is there a gap?”

He also talks about new areas where Pathward is branching out, including commercial finance solutions like merchant services, and working capital. “As we think about financial inclusion and financial education and bringing people through that journey of creditworthiness, we are excited about the credit builder product for small and midsize businesses, which are really those entrepreneurs that are the backbone of how we just expand commerce in the United States,” he says.

During the conversation, Sharett also talks about his own background in bank leadership as an attorney who rose up the ranks on the risk and compliance side of banking, and he discusses how Pathward, formerly known as Metabank, developed its new brand when it sold its trademarks to newly renamed Meta Platforms.

This episode is presented by Biz2X.

What’s new with Small Business Administration lending this year, and how can bankers maximize the value of the SBA loan guaranty programs? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — Erik Daniels of U.S. Bank, the nation’s fourth-largest SBA originator by number of loans, talks about how U.S. Bank builds SBA into its overall business banking strategy.

Daniels highlights the role of SBA lending in making efficient use of capital, mitigating risk, providing more tailored solutions to businesses and driving Community Reinvestment Act impact. He also talks about the value the bank gets out of making SBA loans as a portfolio lender, “which gives our customers great opportunity with rate structure, modifications, any flexibility down the road. . . . Being a portfolio owner gives us the optionality to help them in any way that we can to make their experience a good one.”

Daniels also discusses anticipated changes to SBA programs in 2024 and 2025, and he shares insights on the small business outlook from U.S. Bank clients and survey research.

This episode is presented by Biz2X.

Checks have become so marginal that the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Payment Choice relegates them to a category of “other,” which, along with prepaid cards and money orders accounted for less than 9 percent of all payments in 2022. But checks aren’t entirely dead, with 11.2 billion still written in the U.S. in 2021. Meanwhile, their use by criminals as a vector of fraud has shot up. Which raises the question: The paper check won’t die. Is it time to kill it? This episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Biz2X — sets out to answer that question, with the help of top bankers and experts in the payment space.

According to newly released Gallup figures, just 30 percent of American workers are engaged in their work. The rest are described as disengaged, with 17 percent actively disengaged, “which means they are literally trying to sabotage the organization,” notes Neil Stevens, president and CEO of Oconee State Bank in Oconee, Georgia. “Gallup also says that if you have a 70 percent or higher engagement score, you’re 23 percent more profitable than those with lower engagement scores. So engaged teams truly, in my mind, lead to healthier cultures, better customer retention.”

On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Stevens discusses his approach to cultivating a bank where engagement scores have climbed to 89 percent, triple the national average. Stevens works to build this culture through a framework called Leading Life on Life that emphasizes loving, equipping, affirming and developing (“LEAD”ing) team members. Among other topics on the show, Stevens discusses the role of love in bank management, the importance of active listening and how an environment of healthy affirmation actually allows leaders to hold their teams to higher standards.

• Hear Stevens discuss bank culture and employee engagement at the ABA Annual Convention, Oct. 27-29 in New York City.

For Financial Literacy Month in April, the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — features a conversation on how banks are engaging their communities with financial education. The ABA Foundation’s Kelsey Havemann discusses a brand-new K-2 Teach Children to Save curriculum launching soon, and Lindsay Torrico talks about the Foundation’s big goal to help five million people get on the path to financial prosperity.

• Access free financial education resources from the ABA Foundation.

What’s the CEO-eye view on the U.S. economy, business conditions and the regulatory environment for banks? This week’s episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — features a conversation with ABA’s Peter Cook and four bank CEOs from across the country. In the conversation, they discuss local economic conditions in their markets, how the “regulatory tsunami” is affecting banks of all sizes, the commercial real estate outlook, what they’re most excited for in the future of banking and more.

Quantum computing is an entirely new way of processing information, and it has the power to solve extremely difficult computational problems much more quickly than binary computers. As the technology continues to advance, the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — explores how payments and banking might be affected by the technology. Among other topics, the episode addresses:

• Applications for quantum computing in liquidity management and other complex payment and settlement chains.
• The risks quantum computing poses to current encryption technology and the timeframe over which current encryption might be compromised.
• The emergence of “quantum-safe cryptography.”
• The risk of decryption quantum computing poses to data harvested in past breaches.
• Emerging regulatory expectations for quantum computing-related risk management.

This episode is presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest.

• Nacha’s report on quantum computing and payments
• FS-ISAC podcast on post-quantum cryptography

“These rewards are more than just Amex, Chase, Citi,” says Brian Kelly, founder of the popular travel site The Points Guy. “Well over half of Americans have some form of rewards, often through their community banks — and to a lot of people, cash back rewards.” This bonus episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — features a conversation with Kelly and ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols from ABA’s Washington Summit.

In this episode, Kelly discusses his personal story of getting involved with reward travel, his opposition to efforts to cap interchange or impose routing mandates on credit cards and the value that all kinds of consumers get out of card rewards.

• Read more about taking action on interchange and routing on Secure American Opportunity.

The banking agencies and the Justice Department are shifting how they assess and review bank mergers and acquisitions. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — ABA SVP Hu Benton discusses what bankers need to know about potential deals and offers amid the wave of policy changes.

Among other topics, Benton explores:

• The Justice Department’s review of bank merger guidelines
• The FDIC’s newly released policy statement on mergers.
• How the OCC is evaluating mergers among national banks and federal thrifts.
• How bank mergers fit into the Biden administration and executive agencies’ broader approach to antitrust considerations.
• A new resource from ABA and Squire Patton Boggs to help banks assess their readiness for a transaction.

Access “Bank Mergers & Acquisitions: A Self-Assessment Guide“

This episode is presented by Alkami.

Forget Tom Brady: Most professional athletes don’t play well into their 40s. “You play football for three to four years,” says Brandon Ghee. “And then the next thing you know you’re 25, 26. You’re looking to pursue a career and you go from making $750,000 a year to $50,000. These guys and girls have a problem with the transition [in]how they’re spending during their careers.”

Athletes make a lot of big financial decisions at fairly young ages. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — Ghee, a community banker and former NFL cornerback, discusses how Cogent Bank’s sports and entertainment vertical comes alongside to help with this transition. In addition to traditional financial services, the bank offers specialized education on investing and financial decision-making as well as referrals to key service providers.

Ghee also discusses the fast-growing wave of highly compensated athletes amid the rollout of NCAA permission for name, image and likeness marketing deals and why student-athletes and their families need support and engagement from banks.

• Access financial education resources from the ABA Foundation.

First Horizon Bank, a regional bank based in Memphis, Tennessee, offers some eye-catching numbers on the bank’s gender balance: Women make up 62 percent of its executive team, 54 percent of its top 1,200 corporate managers and 33 percent of its board of directors.

To mark International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Alkami — features three top executives from First Horizon discussing how the bank built an inclusive culture. For Beth Ardoin, chief communications officer, it’s less about focusing on women per se and more focusing on “how do we build the organization around exceptional talent, no matter who you are, where you came from?”

Hope Dmuchowski, First Horizon’s CFO, adds that for “our top talent, whether they’re female, male or diverse, we’re making sure they have lots of opportunities for lots of people that see how talented they are.” Ardoin, Dmuchowski and Erin Pryor, chief marketing and experience officer, also discuss the role of sponsorship, allyship and executive leadership in creating a culture that allows women to showcase their excellent work. “Great work always speaks for itself,” says Pryor. “How do you take those who are doing great work and helping to lift them up and to lift the women who are doing great work in the organization and amplify them?”

Resources:

• Access women in banking resources and training from ABA.
• Register for the ABA Women Lead Symposium, July 17, 2024.
• Listen to First Horizon’s Bucket List-ening podcast.