- by Alan Ikemura

Up to this point, I’ve been writing about loan originations and the prospects and challenges facing bankcard, auto and real estate lending this year.  While things are off to a good start, I’ll use my next few posts to discuss the other side of the loan equation: performance.

If there’s one thing we learned during the post-recession era is that growth can have consequences if not managed properly.  Obviously real estate is the poster child for this phenomenon, but bankcards...

Auditing provides the organization with assurance that all financial controls are in place to ensure that trust account funds are maintained, access to financial records at the vendor location is tightly controlled, customer data is secure, and that the vendor is in full compliance with contractual requirements (i.e., minimum account servicing requirements for issues such as vendor actions following initial placement, ongoing contact efforts, remittance processing, settlement authorizations,...

- by Mike Horrocks

Henry Ford is credited to have said “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”   This is so true with risk management, as you may consider bringing in different business units, policies, etc., into a culture of enterprise risk management.  Institutions that understand the concept of strength from unity are able to minimize risks at all levels, and not be exposed in unfamiliar areas. 

So how can this apply in your organization?...

Some of you may be thinking finally we get to the meat of the matter.  Yes the decision strategies are extremely important when we talk about small business/business banking.  Just remember how we got to here though, we had to first define:

• Who are we going to pursue in this market segment?
• How are we going to pursue this market segment - part 1 &  part 2?
• What are we going to require of the applicants to request the funds?

Without the above, we can create all the decision strategies we want but...

- by Alan Ikemura

In my last two posts on bankcard and auto originations, I provided evidence as to why lenders have reason to feel optimistic about their growth prospects in 2012.  With real estate lending however, the recovery, or lack thereof looks like it may continue to struggle throughout the year.

At first glance, it would appear that the stars have aligned for a real estate turnaround.  Interest rates are at or near all-time lows, housing prices are at post-bubble lows and people are...

With the holiday season behind us (and if you’re anything like me, you have the credit card statements to prove it!), I thought I’d start off with bankcards for my first post of the year.

Everyone’s an optimist at...

- by Joel Pruis

Probably the first debate with information requirements is whether or not to collect financial statements on the business.  There has been much heartburn by the commercial lending traditionalists with the common practice not to collect financial information for a certain segment of the small business applicants.  Great relief was felt by these traditionalists after the 2008 small business portfolio...

Just to recap from Part I – The $500 million to $20 Billion asset size financial institution lost significant ground from 2006 to 2010 while those with assets greater than $20 billion held steady and those smaller than $500 million and the credit unions improved significantly. Also, the focus provided by the business banker (or whatever title used to describe this role) will generate the most number of applications per FTE of any role.

Part II - Field resources pursuing small...

Part I – New Application Volume:

Generating small business or business banking applications may be one of the hottest topics in this segment at this time. Loan demand is down and the pool of qualified candidates seems to be down as well. Trust me, I am not going to jump on the easy bandwagon and state that the financial institutions have stopped pursuing small business loan applications. As I work across the country, I have yet to see a financial institution that is not actively pursuing small...

-by Joel Pruis

Basic segmentation strategy for business banking asks the following questions:

No One Size Fits All

The notion of a single definition for small business for any financial institution is inappropriate as the intent for segmentation...