Bank Brand Value: Calculated!
I ask and ask and ask: what does brand get you? Does it get you pricing power, shorter sales cycles, better employees, more loyal customers? Or does it get you increased expenses without measurable results? Forbes calculated brand value in their “World’s Most Valuable Brands” by taking anything that a company achieves over an 8% […]
The Untapped Value of Brand in Banking
“Our money is the same as the bank’s down the street.” And so were the Uber cars in my recent trips to Los Angeles and Nashville. But something was different. Something that immediately made me feel better about being in Nashville than LA. And my wife nailed it: “the Uber drivers were so much friendlier.” […]
Employee Retention: Keep the Keepers
You have a highly valued employee, and they quit. Why? The boss? The culture? The pay? I’m sure if I searched for credible sources, I would get some version of one or a combination of the three. It is highly individualized. But what is universal is that each financial institution has employees that are highly […]
Why SunTrust and BB&T? Why?
I know on the investor conference call, Kelly King of BB&T and Bill Rogers of SunTrust spoke to why. But I may not have been listening well. I suppose much of the discussion revolved around scale. So, along with my first inclination, my second inclination was also… why? The Numbers Here are their slash lines […]
IMO: How To Make Telecommuting Work in Banks
Schlepping to the office five days a week is enough to make employees, or would be employees, reconsider working for you. This is particularly true in urban areas, where 20 miles might equal an hour commute. Or in growing families, where daycare costs might eat their pay check. In comes telecommuting. And in an era […]
What Makes an Effective Community Banking Board?
How do you construct an effective bank board of directors? A question frequently asked, seldom answered. According to the FDIC, directors’ responsibilities include: “Directors are responsible for selecting, monitoring, and evaluating competent management; establishing business strategies and policies; monitoring and assessing the progress of business operations; establishing and monitoring adherence to policies and procedures […]
Three Gifts for Bankers
The magi, thought to be named Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, followed a bright star to find the Messiah. According to the Gospel of Matthew, they brought him three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The journey wasn’t easy for the magi. At first, they did not know where they were going. And when they arrived in […]
Banking’s Top 5 in Total Return to Shareholders: 2018 Edition
For the past seven years I searched for the Top 5 financial institutions in five-year total return to shareholders because I promote long-term strategic decision making that may not benefit next quarter’s or next year’s earnings release. And I am weary of the persistent “get big or get out” mentality of many bankers and industry […]
Teflon Tim: You Can’t Mess With Wells Fargo
Could the past two years have been worse for Wells Fargo (WF)? According to an appropriately snarky Gonzo Banker post by Scott Hodgins, Wells’ blunders are epic: September 2016 – Disclosed that they created two million bogus accounts without customer consent to hit the bank’s “eight is great” cross-sell targets. That fiasco cost them over […]
Bankers: Don’t Buy the Hype. Let Fintech Equity Investors Bear the Cost of Experimentation.
When JPMorgan Chase released its 2016 annual report, in which the celluloid CEO Jamie Dimon proudly acknowledged spending nearly $10 billion on technology, the talking heads erupted. Ten billion! Must be good. Jamie does it. And from that moment the conventional wisdom was and is: community banks can’t compete. I just heard it on Friday. […]