2023 Risk Survey Results: Deposit Pressures Dominate

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In 2023, the overarching question on bank leaders’ minds is how their organization will fare in the next crisis.

That manifested in increased concerns around interest rates, liquidity, credit and consumer risk, and other issues gauged in Bank Director’s 2023 Risk Survey, sponsored by Moss Adams LLP. The survey was fielded in January, before a run on deposits imperiled several institutions and regulators began closing banks in March, including $209 billion SVB Financial Corp.’s Silicon Valley Bank.

Well before this turmoil, bank executives and board members were feeling the pressure as the Federal Open Market Committee raised rates, leading bankers to selectively raise deposit rates and control their cost of funds. Over the past year, respondent concerns about interest rate risk (91%), credit risk (77%) and liquidity (71%) all increased markedly. Executives and directors also identify cybersecurity (84%) and compliance (70%) as areas where their concerns have increased, but managing the balance sheet has become, by and large, their first priority.

Bank leaders name deposit pricing (51%) and talent retention (50%) among the top strategic challenges their organization faces in 2023. Sixty-one percent say their bank has experienced some deposit loss, with minimal to moderate impacts on their funding base, and another 11% say that deposit outflows had a significant impact on their funding base.

Net interest margins improved for a majority (53%) of bank leaders taking part in the survey, but respondents are mixed about whether their bank’s NIM will expand or contract over 2023.

Three-quarters of bank executives and board members report that business clients remain strong in spite of inflation and economic pressures, although some are pausing growth plans. As commercial clients face increasing costs of materials and labor, talent pressures and shrinking revenues, that’s having an impact on commercial loan demand, some bankers say. And as the Federal Reserve continues to battle inflation against an uncertain macroeconomic backdrop, half of respondents say their concerns around consumer risk have increased, a significant shift from last year’s survey.

Key Findings

Deposit Pressures
Asked about what steps they might take to manage liquidity, 73% of executives and directors say they would raise interest rates offered on deposits, and 62% say they would borrow funds from a Federal Home Loan Bank. Less favored options include raising brokered deposits (30%), the use of participation loans (28%), tightening credit standards (22%) and using incentives to entice depositors (20%). Respondents say they would be comfortable maintaining a median loan-to-deposit ratio of 70% at the low end and 90% at the high end.

Strategic Challenges Vary
While the majority of respondents identify deposit pricing and/or talent retention as significant strategic challenges, 31% cite slowing credit demand, followed by liquidity management (29%), evolving regulatory and compliance requirements (28%) and CEO or senior management succession (20%).

Continued Vigilance on Cybersecurity
Eighty-seven percent of respondents say their bank has completed a cybersecurity assessment, with most banks using the tool offered by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. Respondents cite detection technology, training for bank staff and internal communications as the most common areas where they have made changes after completing their assessment. Respondents report a median of $250,000 budgeted for cybersecurity-related expenses.

Stress On Fees
A little over a third (36%) of respondents say their bank has adjusted its fee structure in anticipation of regulatory pressure, while a minority (8%) did so in response to direct prodding by regulators. More than half of banks over $10 billion in assets say they adjusted their fee structure, either in response to direct regulatory pressure or anticipated regulatory pressure.

Climate Discussions Pick Up
The proportion of bank leaders who say their board discusses climate change at least annually increased over the past year to 21%, from 16% in 2022. Sixty-one percent of respondents say they do not focus on environmental, social and governance issues in a comprehensive manner, but the proportion of public banks that disclose their progress on ESG goals grew to 15%, from 10% last year.

Stress Testing Adjustments
Just over three-quarters of respondents say their bank conducts an annual stress test. In comments, offered before the Federal Reserve added a new component to its stress testing for the largest banks, many bank leaders described the ways that they’ve changed their approach to stress testing in anticipation of a downturn. One respondent described adding a liquidity stress test in response to increased deposit pricing and unrealized losses in the securities portfolio.

To view the high-level findings, click here.

Bank Services members can access a deeper exploration of the survey results. Members can click here to view the complete results, broken out by asset category and other relevant attributes. If you want to find out how your bank can gain access to this exclusive report, contact [email protected].

Growth Milestone Comes With Crucial FDICIA Requirements

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Mergers or strong internal growth can quickly send a small financial institution’s assets soaring past the $1 billion mark. But that milestone comes with additional requirements from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that, if not tackled early, can become arduous and time-consuming.

When a bank reaches that benchmark, as measured at the start of its fiscal year, the FDIC requires an annual report that must include:

  • Audited comparative annual financial statements.
  • The independent public accountant’s report on the audited financial statements.
  • A management report that contains:
    • A statement of certain management responsibilities.
    • An assessment of the institution’s compliance with laws pertaining to insider loans and dividend restrictions during the year.
    • An assessment on the effectiveness of the institution’s internal control structure over financial reporting, as of the end of the fiscal year.
    • The independent public accountant’s attestation report concerning the effectiveness of the institution’s internal control structure over financial reporting.

Management Assessment of Internal Controls
Complying with Internal Controls over Financial Reporting (ICFR) requirements can be exhaustive, but a few early steps can help:

  • Identify key business processes around financial reporting/systems in scope.
  • Conduct business process walk-throughs of the key business processes.
  • For each in-scope business process/system, identify related IT general control (ITGC) elements.
  • Create a risk control matrix (RCM) with the key controls and identity gaps in controls.

To assess internal controls and procedures for financial reporting, start with control criteria as a baseline. The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) of the Treadway Commission provides criteria with a fairly broad outline of internal control components that banks should evaluate at the entity level and activity or process level.

Implementation Phases, Schedule and Events
A FDICIA implementation approach generally includes a four-phase program designed with the understanding that a bank’s external auditors will be required to attest to and report on management’s internal control assessment.

Phase One: Business Risk Assessment and COSO Evaluation
Perform a high-level business risk assessment COSO evaluation of the bank. This evaluation is a top-down approach that allows the bank to effectively identify and address the five major components of COSO. This review includes describing policies and procedures in place, as well as identifying areas of weakness and actions needed to ensure that the bank’s policies and procedures are operating with effective controls.

Phase One action steps are:

  • Educate senior management and audit committee/board of directors on reporting requirements.
  • Establish a task force internally, evaluate resources and communicate.
  • Identify and delegate action steps, including timeline.
  • Identify criteria to be used (COSO).
  • Determine which processes and controls are significant.
  • Determine which locations or business units should be included.
  • Coordinate with external auditor when applicable.
  • Consider adoption of a technology tool to provide data collection, analysis and graphical reporting.

Phase Two: Documenting the Bank’s Control Environment
Once management approves the COSO evaluation and has identified the high-risk business lines and support functions of the bank, it should document the internal control environment and perform a detailed process review of high-risk areas. The primary goals of this phase are intended to identify and document which controls are significant, evaluate their design effectiveness and determine what enhancements, if any, they must make.

Phase Three: Testing and Reporting of the Control Environment
The bank’s internal auditor validates the key internal controls by performing an assessment of the operating effectiveness to determine if they are functioning as designed, intended and expected.  The internal auditor should help management determine which control deficiencies, if any, constitute a significant deficiency or material control weakness. Management and the internal auditor should consult with the external auditor to determine if they have performed any of the tests and if their testing can be leveraged for FDICIA reporting purposes.

Phase Four: Ongoing Monitoring
A primary component of an effective system of internal control is an ongoing monitoring process. The ongoing evaluation process of the system of internal controls will occasionally require modification as the business adjusts. Certain systems may require control enhancements to respond to new products or emerging risks. In other areas, the evaluation may point out redundant controls or other procedures that are no longer necessary. It’s useful to discuss the evaluation process and ongoing monitoring when making such improvement determinations.

Overdraft Fees Are Getting a Much-Needed Overhaul

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Overdraft fees have been a significant source of noninterest income for the banking industry since they were first introduced in the 1990s. But these “deterrent” fees are on the chopping block at major financial institutions across the country, putting pressure on smaller banks to follow suit. 

Overdraft and non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees brought in an estimated $11 billion in revenue in 2021, according to the Financial Health Network, significantly down from $15.5 billion in fee revenue in 2019. As the industry responds to ongoing regulatory pressure on top of increased competition from neobanks and disruptive fintechs, that downward trend is expected to continue. 

For larger banks, those with more than $10 billion in assets, overdraft fee income has trended downward since 2015. Christopher Marinac, director of research at Janney Montgomery Scott, reported on this back in December 2021 after noting overdraft fees had declined for 23 quarters and expects this trend to continue into 2022. Despite the decline, regulators continue to focus on them, citing their role in the growth of wealth inequality. 

“[R]egulators have clearly sent a signal that they want those fees to either go away or be less emphasized,” Marinac says. “Like a lot of things in the regulatory world, this has been an area of focus and banks are going to find a way to make money elsewhere.”

For an industry that has evolved so rapidly over the last 10 years, overdraft fees represent a legacy banking service that has not adapted to today’s digital banking customer or the realistic cost to service this feature, says Darryl Knopp, senior director of portfolio marketing at the credit rating agency FICO. Knopp believes that an activities-based cost analysis would show just how mispriced these services actually are. It’s one reason why neobanks such as Chime have attracted customers boasting of lower fees. If banks were to think about overdrafts as access to short-term credit, that would change the pricing conversation to one of risk management. 

“Banks are way more efficient than they were 30 years ago, and they need to understand what the actual costs of these services are,’’ Knopp says. “The pricing has not changed since I got into banking, and that’s why [banks] are getting lapped by the fintechs.” 

Overdrafts aren’t going to disappear overnight, but some banks are getting ahead of the trend and taking action. Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., and JPMorgan Chase & Co., which together brought in an estimated $2.8 billion in overdraft and NSF fee revenue in the first three quarters of 2021, recently announced reduced fees and implemented new grace periods, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Capital One Financial Corp. announced the elimination of both overdraft and NSF fees back in December and Citigroup’s Citibank recently announced plans to eliminate overdraft fees, returned item fees, and overdraft protection fees. 

In April, $4.2 billion First Internet Bancorp of Fishers, Indiana, announced the removal of overdraft fees on personal and small business deposit accounts, but it continues to charge NSF fees when applicable. Nicole Lorch, president and chief operating officer at First Internet Bank, talked to Bank Director’s Vice President of Research Emily McCormick about the decision to make this change. She says overdrafts were not a key source of income for the bank and the executives wanted to emphasize their customer-centric approach to service. First Internet Bank’s internal data also found that overdraft fees tended toward accidental oversight by the customers, whereas NSF fees were more often the result of egregious behavior. 

“In the case of overdrafts,” says Lorch, “it felt like consumers could get themselves into the situation unintentionally, and we are not in this work to create hurdles for our customers.”

For banks that are grappling with the increased pressure to tackle this issue, there are other ways to get creative with overdraft and NSF fees. Last year, PNC Financial Services Group introduced its new “Low Cash Mode” offering, which comes with the Spend account inside of PNC’s Virtual Wallet. Low Cash Mode alerts customers to a low balance in their account. It gives customers the flexibility to choose which debits get processed, and provides a grace period of 24 hours or more to address an overdraft before charging a fee.

Banks that want to keep pace with the industry and are willing to take a proactive approach need to find ways to offer more personalized solutions. 

“The problem is not the overdraft fee,” says Ron Shevlin, chief research officer at Cornerstone Advisors. “It’s a liquidity management problem and it’s bigger than just overdrawing one’s account. Banks should see this as an opportunity to help customers with their specific liquidity management needs.” 

He says it’s time for the industry to move away from viewing overdrafts as a product and start thinking of it as a solutions-based service that can be personalized to a customer’s unique needs.

  • Bank Director Vice President of Research Emily McCormick contributed to this report.

The Overlooked Fee Opportunity for Community Banks

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While many community banks offer some sort of foreign exchange or international payments capabilities to their customers, these experiences often leave a lot to be desired — and could be leaving business, and fee income, on the table.

A competitive and scalable payments program doesn’t have to be a giant undertaking for community banks. But in order to offer a competitive program, banks should ensure reasonable pricing, transparency and reliability. Bank Director chatted with Cara Hayward, director of strategic partnerships for North America at CurrencyCloud, to explore what banks are missing out on and how they can grow this business. This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

BD: Where are community banks when it comes to foreign exchange and the digitization of payments? Is this an area they should bother competing against bigger banks or non-bank financial companies?

CH: Community banks usually have some sort of foreign exchange offering, but it’s usually an afterthought and they often rely on a large correspondent bank for their service offering. Correspondents do provide a good service, but offer uncompetitive rates that don’t leave a lot of margin for banks to be competitive.

That means, a lot of community banks may not realize what demand for international payment or foreign exchange actually exists among their customers. Missing out on this fee income really hurts in an environment like we’re in today, since it’s harder to make money through lending.

BD: What kind of opportunities exist for community banks when it comes to foreign exchange and what does a modern offering need to be competitive?

CH: If a community bank wants to invest in this space to drive income, they need to think about scalability, reliability and cost.

When it comes to cost, there’s both the cost of goods sold and costs around supporting the business. Banks make money by marking up the rate they receive from their provider by a certain amount of basis points. The second cost is around supporting the business line. International payments do require the ability to manage payments in an operationally efficient and compliant way, and it’s important that partners are able to create processes that can be scalable and repeatable.

Reliability and transparency are related. Banks should look for partners that have technology that allows for as much transparency as possible, so when something goes wrong, there’s a robust support network.

BD: What do customers want from their community bank when it comes to international payments and transfers? Can community banks offer this?

CH: Customers that aren’t doing a ton of international payments or foreign exchange may not be sensitive to price or experience, and might just suffer through it. But customers that want or demand a better experience are moving away from community banks to fintech apps or larger banks. They’re looking for reliability and repeatability, competitive costs and transparency. They want to know their money is going to get where it’s going, and they want that to happen consistently.

Foreign exchange can often feel like a black box to customers. There are a lot of fees, they’re in tiny little prints and customers don’t know if what they’re getting is competitive. They want honesty and transparency about what the process is, what they should expect and what that cost is going to be.

Because businesses are doing more of their business online and cash flow is more important than ever, they require more when it comes to cross border transactions. Especially in the e-commerce market, technology, and imports and exports, there’s a need for that digitization of payments.

As community banks grow and try to move up market, they may go after larger and more-profitable corporate or industrial customers. That’s where they’ll see the demand for volume when it comes to international payments, and where costs start to make a difference to customers.

BD: What prevents foreign exchange from being a bigger part of community bank offerings? How do they change this?

CH: Oftentimes, its other competing projects. I totally understand that foreign exchange and international payments is not the biggest part of these banks’ business, but I don’t think they realize what they’re actually missing or where this potential business could go.

There’s a perception that foreign exchange and international payments are complicated and scary, but there are partners out there that do this. Community bankers should spend some time educating themselves on what is out there, and what are the costs and benefits of investing in a project like this as far as potential revenue.

For those that don’t offer it, starting small is the way to go. Do a proof of concept. Talk to different providers in the network, including fintechs and correspondent banks. Make sure to do your due diligence. Start with a small project: a couple of your best small- or medium-sized business customers that need this. Pick a partner that is going to handhold you through the process, support you and help you grow.

It’s a similar process for those looking to expand. They should think about the evolution of their current business in chunks — where do they want to be in one year, five years, 10 years — and pick partners that will support you through that process.

Seven Costs of Saying “No” to Cannabis Banking

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Ask the typical bank executive why their institution isn’t providing banking services to state-legal cannabis-related businesses (CRBs), and you will likely hear a speedy retort along these lines:

“We’re not allowed to — it’s still federally illegal.”

“We would love to, but we don’t know enough about that industry to manage the risk.”

“We don’t think our customers would want our name and reputation associated with that.”

On the surface, these prudent practices make perfect sense. A complex legal landscape, inability to assess regulatory risk and desire to protect the institution’s reputation are compelling reasons to stay far away from cannabis-related proceeds. But there are hidden costs to saying “no” to cannabis banking. These hidden costs accrue to CRBs, the communities in which they are located, the financial institutions that avoid them and potentially society at large.

Community Risks

Community risks stem from direct and indirect sources. The obvious risks, such as the increased potential for crime and the resulting challenges to law enforcement, are frequently cited. The indirect risks are less obvious, such as a community’s inability to identify or collect appropriate taxes on CRB proceeds.

Cash on hand invites crimes of opportunity. A retail location that is known to have large volumes of cash on hand produces a seductive temptation for the criminal element.

Cash is easy to conceal from revenue officials. Fewer dollars in the public coffers are the inevitable outcome when revenue goes uncollected. In its “Taxing Cannabis” report, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy indicates that tax evasion and ongoing competition from illicit marijuana operations remain an ongoing concern in legal use states.

Opportunity Costs

Early adopters have demonstrated that the cannabis industry is willing and able to accept higher price points from financial institutions in exchange for the safety and convenience of obtaining traditional banking services. Your bank’s avoidance means forfeiting both short-term and long-term opportunities to generate fee income while giving others a head start on future business opportunities.

Cost of lost fee income. It is not uncommon to hear of small financial institutions generating multimillion-dollar annual fee income from CRB accounts. In less-established markets, accounts yield monthly fees based on their average deposit balances.

Cost of missing out. Just like its social media counterpart — FOMO or fear of missing out — COMO is real. If 5% to 10% of your peers are already banking CRBs, imagine what will happen as the next 10% step in. And then the next 10% after that. Before the real race has even begun, you’ve ceded some portion of the addressable market simply by not being present in the market today.

Economic Costs

The suppression of legal cannabis businesses weakens their potential to inform decisions and progress. Anecdotal and scientific evidence supports that mental and physical health benefits can be derived from responsibly sourced and properly administered cannabis-based products. Data from countries that are moving quickly to align public policy with sentiment and science on these issues indicates that sustainable economic benefits are possible.

Cost of falling behind in medical and other scientific research and advances. In 2018, 420Intel identified six countries for their cannabis research: Spain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Uruguay, the Netherlands and Israel. This type of research cannot be conducted in the United States because of federal prohibitions that require clearing multiple regulatory hurdles, at great cost.

Costs of pain and suffering to those in need of relief. Even if your personal belief sets don’t allow you to explore cannabis topics with an open mind, you need look no further than your media feeds or internet searches to find immeasurable examples of individuals who claim that using cannabis or cannabinoids have provided them with physical and mental health benefits.

Cost of lost economic growth potential. While exact numbers are hard to come by, there more than 110 studies taking place in Israel alone, funded at rates in the six and seven figures apiece. BNN Bloomberg reported that Canada’s legalized cannabis sector contributed $8.26 billion to its gross domestic product in its first 10 months of national legalization.

So before your bank decides the risks of saying “yes” to banking CRBs is still too high, pause to consider the risks you’re allowing to affect your institution and local community when you say “no.” Perhaps it’s time to take a fresh look at whether CRB banking is for you.

Fee Income at Premium as Crisis Threatens Credit

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Companies today have to work smarter and harder to survive the coronavirus crisis, said Green Dot Corp. CEO Daniel Henry in the company’s recent earnings call.

Henry joined Pasadena, California-based Green Dot as CEO on March 26, and has been working remotely to get up to speed on the $3 billion financial company’s operations, which include prepaid cards, tax processing and a banking platform. Those diversified business lines are a source of strength, he said.

“We’re in a much better position than just kind of a monoline neo-bank to weather the storm,” he says. “We’ve got positive free cash flows, strong revenues and cash in the bank.”

After a couple of years of moderately rising interest rates, the Federal Reserve began to back off mid-2019. They dramatically dropped them to zero in February as one tool to fight the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and have promised to keep them low until the economy shows firm signs of recovery. Now, it looks like the industry needs to strap in for another lengthy period of low interest rates.

All this puts further pressure on already-squeezed net interest margins.

While the spread between deposits and loans represents a bank’s traditional method of generating revenue, banks also focus on fee income sources to drive profitability. Business lines that expand non-interest income opportunities could be particularly valuable in the current environment.

With this in mind, Bank Director ranked publicly traded institutions based on noninterest income as a percentage of net income, using year-end 2019 data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. We focused on profitable retail banks with a return on average assets exceeding 1.3%.

Many of these banks rely on traditional sources of noninterest income — mortgages, insurance, asset management — but two differentiate themselves through unique business models.

Green Dot topped the ranking, with the bulk of its fees generated through prepaid card transactions. It also earns revenue through its Banking-as-a-Service arrangements with companies such as Uber Technologies, Apple, Intuit and long-term partner Walmart.

Meta Financial Group deploys a similar model, offering prepaid cards and tax products. The Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based bank will soon issue federal stimulus payments via prepaid cards to almost four million Americans through a partnership with the U.S. Treasury.

The remaining banks in our list take a more traditional approach.

Institutions like Dallas-based Hilltop Holdings primarily generate fee income through mortgage lending. Keefe, Bruyette & Wood’s managing director Brady Gailey believes the low-rate environment will favor similar financial institutions. “Hilltop has a very strong mortgage operation … which should do even better this year, given the lower rate backdrop that we have now,” he says.

The $15.7 billion bank announced the sale of its insurance unit, National Lloyds Corp., earlier this year; that deal is expected to close in the second quarter. Even without its insurance division, Hilltop maintains diverse fee income streams, says Gailey, through mortgage, investment banking (HilltopSecurities) and commercial banking.

Hilltop CEO Jeremy Ford said in a January earnings call that the insurance business wasn’t “core. … this will allow us to really focus more on those three businesses and grow them.”

As the fifth-largest insurance broker in the U.S., Charlotte, North Carolina-based Truist Financial Corp. enjoys operating leverage and pricing power, according to Christopher Marinac, the director of research at Janney Montgomery Scott. “[Insurance will] be a key piece of that income stream,” he says. “I think insurance is going to be something that every bank wishes they had — but Truist truly does have it, and I think you’re going to see them take advantage of that.”

In Green Dot’s earnings call, Henry said he’s still evaluating the company’s various business lines. But with Covid-19 pushing consumers to dramatically increase their use of electronic payment methods — both for online shopping and more hygienic in-person transactions — he’s bullish on payments.

“Covid is really forcing a lot of consumers [to] search out a digital solution,” Henry said. Visa recently reported that while face-to-face transactions declined significantly in April, there was an 18% uptick in digital commerce spending.

Recently, Green Dot investigated a spike in card sales in a particular area. It turned out that a local cable company’s offices were closed due to Covid-19. A sign on the company’s door instructed customers wanting to make in-person payments to go to a store across the street and buy a Green Dot card so they could make their payment electronically.

“A lot of the consumers that were hanging on to cash over the last few months really didn’t have an option and got pushed into the electronic payments world,” he said. “That will definitely benefit us at Green Dot.”

 

Top Fee Income Generators

Rank Bank Name Ticker Primary Fee Income Source Total Noninterest Income ($000s), YE 2019
#1 Green Dot Corp. GDOT Card $1,071,063
#2 Hilltop Holdings HTH Mortgage $1,206,974
#3 Waterstone Financial WSBF Mortgage $129,099
#4 HarborOne Bancorp HONE Mortgage $59,411
#5 Meta Financial Group CASH Card $221,760
#6 Truist Financial Corp. TFC Insurance $5,337,000
#7 FB Financial Corp. FBK Mortgage $135,038
#8 JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM Asset management $58,456,000
#9 PNC Financial Services Group PNC Corporate services $7,817,138
#10 U.S. Bancorp USB Payments $9,761,000

Sources: S&P Global Market Intelligence, bank 10-Ks

Have MVB and BillGO Reached True Financial Symbiosis?

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payments-7-18-18.pngSometimes a fintech partnership doesn’t result in a new product or service for the bank but can still result in new opportunities for both organizations. The relationship between BillGO, a real-time payments provider based in Fort Collins, Colorado, and MVB Financial Corp., a $1.6 billion asset financial holding company headquartered in Fairmont, West Virginia, isn’t your typical partnership story. Instead, it’s an example of true symbiosis between a bank and a fintech firm, with MVB gaining deposits and fee income while helping BillGO scale its real-time payments solution to more than 5,000 banks and credit unions. Less than a year ago, the company worked with just 200 institutions. It plans to go live with another 3,000 in the next few months.

The two companies were recognized as finalists for the Best of FinXTech Partnership at Bank Director’s 2018 Best of FinXTech Awards.

MVB supports BillGO’s growth in a number of ways. The bank processes its payments, resulting in fee income for MVB. The bank also holds deposits for the company and its B2B clients in connection with their transactions. And the bank’s compliance expertise is another key benefit. “We keep them out of trouble, so to speak,” says MVB CEO Larry Mazza.

This growing understanding of the fintech industry’s needs, gained in part due to its relationship with BillGO, is quietly turning MVB into a bank of choice for fintech firms.

“We’re meeting other, more mature fintech companies that allow us to help them in different ways,” Mazza says. “It’s really started to be very positive for us, in learning fintech [and] in profitability, deposits as well as fee income.”

“They don’t really advertise it, but they do have a specialty with fintech because of their compliance [expertise], because of their ability with payments and their ability with partnerships to deliver some unique offerings that fintech companies can’t normally do by themselves,” says BillGO CEO Dan Holt.

Before partnering with MVB, BillGO worked with a larger bank, but Holt says MVB is a Goldilocks-style bank for the company: Big enough to help the company scale, but small enough to make decisions quickly and develop an in-depth relationship with his company. Holt adds that his company has access to MVB’s executive team, unlike his previous banking provider.

And MVB is an investor in BillGO. “I felt this would be a really good [way] for us to start the process of investing in fintech,” says Mazza. “Once you invest money in it, it definitely piques your interest.” He describes the bank as an active investor, and Mazza has served on the company’s board since January 2017.

This expertise has been invaluable for BillGO, given Mazza’s financial background and his ability to shed light on the needs of the banking industry, says Holt.

Just as the BillGO relationship is a strong reputation-builder for MVB with other fintech firms, Holt says that MVB’s investment in BillGO speaks volumes about his company’s reputation to potential bank clients. New customers feel more comfortable knowing a traditional financial institution is an investor and has completed the associated due diligence.

Holt joined the MVB board late last year as an extension of the partnership between the two organizations, and Mazza says his background has been highly beneficial to the bank. “[Holt] has intimate knowledge into the industry and payment processing,” says Mazza, and his expertise enhances board discussions about technology trends and opportunities. “Our board members could see the difference.”

Many bank boards struggle to add tech-savvy directors, with 44 percent of bank directors and executives in Bank Director’s 2018 Compensation Survey citing this as a key challenge.

“Banks are more traditional. They really honor regulation,” says Mazza. “It’s our lifeblood, and we have taken regulation extremely seriously. We see regulation as a competitive advantage, if we do it right.” But partnering with BillGO, and adding Holt to the board, is helping MVB think like a startup as well. “That has changed our lives,” he says. “BillGO has helped us think more innovatively [and be] more forward-thinking.”

“Whatcha Gonna Do When the Fed Raises Rates on You?”

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interest-rate-9-9-16.pngThe elephant in the room: What happens to earnings, funding costs and liquidity if the Fed aggressively tightens? It’s time to acknowledge the need for contingent hedging plans and evaluate how to manage risk while remaining profitable in a flat or rising rate environment.

For the past several years, the banking industry has faced significant earnings challenges. Profitability has been under pressure due to increases in nonaccruals, credit losses, new regulatory costs and the low rate environment. Some banks have responded by cost cutting, but community banks do not have as much flexibility in this regard, especially if they are committed to a level of service that distinguishes community banks from larger banking institutions. Among the risks community banks face today are:

Margin compression from falling asset yields and funding costs that are at their lowest.

Interest rate risk. Borrowers are seeking fixed rates at longer and longer terms. The fixed term necessary to win the loan often may create unacceptable interest rate risk to the bank.

Irregular loan growth has often lead to increased competition for available borrowers with good credit.

To meet the challenge of generating positive earnings at more desirable levels, most community banks lengthened asset maturities while shortening liabilities. This resulted in some temporary margin stabilization, provided short term rates stay where they are, in exchange for higher risk profile if rates rise. The strategy has generally worked for approximately the last five years, but the question is for how much longer can we expect this to continue to work? In my opinion, community banks need more robust risk management programs to manage these risks and, in response, many have increasingly turned to swaps and other hedging solutions.

One competitive solution commercial lenders are employing is loan level hedging. This is a program where the bank will use an interest rate swap to hedge on a loan by loan basis. An interest rate swap is a hedging instrument that is used to convert a fixed rate to floating or vice versa. Loan level hedging allows the borrower to pay a fixed rate, and the bank to receive a floating rate. There are two simple models:

  1. Offer a fixed rate loan to the borrower and immediately swap the fixed rate to floating with a dealer. The loan coupon would be set at a rate that would swap to a spread over LIBOR that would meet the bank’s return target.
  2. Offer a floating rate loan and an interest rate swap to the borrower. The borrower’s swap would convert the floating rate on the loan to fixed. Simultaneously, the bank would enter into an offsetting rate swap with a dealer. This model is usually referred to as a “back to back” or “matched book.”

In my view, these solutions help the community bank compete with dealers, regional banks, and rival community banks. These models have been around for decades and their acceptance and use among community banks has increased dramatically over the last several years. Their benefits include:

They protect margins by improving asset/liability position through floating rates on commercial assets. They may enhance borrower credit quality by reducing borrower sensitivity to rising rates.

They diversify product lines and level the playing field versus larger commercial lenders and community banks in your market who offer hedging alternatives.

They are accounting friendly. Banks should always be aware of accounting treatment before entering any hedging strategy. The accounting treatment for loan level hedges is normally friendly and often does not create any income statement ineffectiveness.

They create fee income. When properly administered, a swap program may provide the bank a good opportunity to generate fee income with no additional personnel or systems costs.

Swaps and other derivatives may provide an immediate solution without the need for restructuring the balance sheet or changing your lending and funding programs. If you haven’t considered interest rate hedging before, you should consider contacting a dealer you trust for a discussion.

A Remedy For Commercial Client Headaches

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Banks can solve a major headache for commercial clients by offering business services to help manage accounts payable, accounts receivable, tax collection and other payments. In this video, Matthew Hawkins of Mineral Tree explains how this approach can strengthen the client relationship while generating additional fee income for the bank.

  • How the Bank Gains by Offering Business Services
  • Benefits for the Client
  • How Technology Providers Can Help

Putting the Retail Back in Retail Checking Design

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mobile-rewards.jpgAsk bankers how they go about designing their retail checking products and most will answer with much more of a focus on the checking part than the retail part. Don’t get me wrong, the checking part is essential. The account has to be operationally secure, reliable and accurate in terms of supporting transactions and related information. However, customers have overwhelmingly shown they aren’t willing to pay for just checking. To be different, to generate much needed fee income and to really change the game of checking, banks must focus more on the retail part of retail checking. Here’s why.

With mobile and online banking growing rapidly, customers’ face-to-face interaction with bankers is becoming less frequent. As a result, customers’ experience with and connection to the bank is more tied to their direct interaction with their checking product and what that product delivers. Plus, the checking account continues to be critically important as the primary fee income vehicle on the retail banking side.

This begs the question, how does your bank design its retail checking accounts to be so relevant and engaging to your customers that they will gladly pay a fee for them? This is where the retail focus in the design of your checking products comes into play—your bank has to deliver to your customers a more meaningful and emotional experience with the product itself. It seems like the banking industry has talked forever about being retailers. Yet, very few banks apply basic retailing principles to product design. Even fewer have been willing to commit to doing what they need to do to experience the success of top retailers. For the last decade or so, it was easy to understand why—free checking and overdrafts were the gift that kept on giving, so thinking about retailing in regard to product design and relationship-building took a back seat.

To learn how to incorporate retailing to make your checking accounts more relevant and engaging so that your customers willingly pay for them, just take a look at the best retailers outside the banking industry. The online shopping websites LivingSocial and Amazon make incredible emotional connections with their customers yet rarely interact with them face-to-face. The customer relationship is almost entirely defined through the design of the product and the value it delivers. In most cases, the only interaction with the customer is by email.

So the next question begging to be answered is what retailing best practices are naturally transferable to incorporate into your checking products? There are many possibilities, but there are primarily three that easily fit into the design of a checking account and aren’t so costly as to make the monthly fee non-competitive. These three are local, mobile and social.

First, nearly every geographical market today is promoting the local mindset—thinking, supporting, buying local, etc. Banks already know this power of local as they already classify themselves as community banks (even the mega-banks employ this positioning). So it is very logical to extend this role to becoming a community connector. This means connecting your consumer customers who buy things locally with your small business customers who are looking to grow their sales.

Second, mobile delivery of banking products/services is here to stay. Banks that think like a top retailer already know that three of the top four ways consumers want to use their mobile phones involve shopping and coupons. (The Federal Reserve reports on “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services,” March 2012 and March 2013, provide a wealth of information about how consumers want to use their mobile phones, not how banks think they want to use their mobile phones.)

So combining these local and mobile best practices into a checking benefit like a local merchant discount network that delivers the discounts via a customer’s mobile phone is not only a difference maker but a game changer. Think about it—your retail customers talking about how their checking account saved them money on purchases and your small business customers seeing how your bank helped grow their business. Plus, it’s already proven that your customers will gladly pay a monthly reasonable fee to get access to attractive local merchant discounts, around $6 per account.

This leaves the social best practice. To be clear, we’re not talking about social media. What we’re referring to is purposeful communication that is unexpected, unselfish and engaging. The typical social experience of checking customers is they open an account and the bank doesn’t meaningfully communicate with them again until the customers have some type of issue or problem, or they come back in the branch. Smart retailers already know the power of purposeful communication, sending periodic emails to customers that make offers that usually save them money or at least recognize them as valuable customers.

If you want to put the retail back in retail checking, then study up on how other top retailers are using the local, mobile and social best practices and determine how your bank can incorporate these features into your checking accounts. Doing so will make your checking accounts different, change the game for your consumer and small business customers, and provide ample customer-friendly fee income that every bank needs.

*This article has been updated from an earlier version.