South State Correspondent

JANUARY 3, 2024

One common question we field is recommendations of books to improve either bank performance or personal performance. Since many bankers likely have a self-improvement goal in their New Year’s resolutions, we wanted to put out our recommendations right from the start. To do this, we teamed up with Jack Hubbard, Managing Partner of the Modern Banker , to bring you our collective favorites.

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South State Correspondent

JANUARY 2, 2024

Many economists and analysts predict that the Federal Reserve and other central banks will start easing monetary policy in 2024. Many bankers and borrowers are convinced that a recession is imminent despite no clear evidence for such a conclusion. How should lenders discuss interest rates in 2024, and what advice should relationship managers provide their clients about banking products?

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South State Correspondent

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Good commercial lenders use commitment letters and proposal letters to their advantage. A proposal letter (or letter of intent) expresses interest from the lender before credit approval is obtained. A commitment letter evidences the lender’s commitment to lend. It is only furnished after preliminary credit approval and typically contains the following language: lender commits to provide the loan on, and subject to, the terms and satisfaction of conditions set forth herein.

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South State Correspondent

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Halloween is approaching, so we might as well talk about death. Checks are dying and about to die quicker, given the rise of instant payments. In the next two years, many banks will have strategic plans to phase checks out, given their cost and reduction in frequency. Checks are getting to the point where they are too costly to process for the bank, business, and household.

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South State Correspondent

OCTOBER 25, 2023

After Brief Rally, Treasury Yields Head Higher Again Treasury yields are moving higher once again this morning as the Treasury’s expected announcement next week of increased auction sizes is starting to weigh on markets, and the lates PMI and new home sales offer little indication of a slowing fourth quarter economy. Presently, the 10yr is yielding 4.91%, down 20/32nds in price while the 2yr is yielding 5.09%, down 1/32nd in price.

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South State Correspondent

OCTOBER 12, 2023

Many parents have dealt with the issue of how to divide Halloween candy among siblings. It takes work. If all houses gave out the same candy, it wouldn’t be a problem. But houses give out different sweets. Further, trick-or-treaters have different preferences. Whatever the case, candy, and preferences are not all the same. As a result, candy is distributed unevenly, forcing parents concerned with equality to employ some game theory.

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South State Correspondent

OCTOBER 9, 2023

In two articles in the past few weeks ( here and here ), we discussed how the “higher-for-longer” interest rate environment will affect the community bank sector – continued increase in the cost of funds (COF), steady yields on loans, and a decrease in net interest margin (NIM) will put severe pressure on ROE for new loan originations. Community banks must improve the performance of their existing portfolio.

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South State Correspondent

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

Most banks have still not committed to RTP® or FedNow SM for their commercial customers – a bank’s most significant single profit driver. Most banks ignore instant payments or are still worried about fraud and research. The irony is that of the estimated $25 trillion in B2B payments in the U.S., 33% are still made via check that contains more than $8B of fraud per year.

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South State Correspondent

AUGUST 28, 2023

Bankers need to consider the term structure of rates, also known as the yield curve shape, when structuring and pricing commercial loans to maximize return and reduce risk. Many bankers and borrowers are convinced that a recession is imminent, but the current term structure of rates does not necessarily establish this conclusion. The yield curve’s predictive power is not causal; instead, there is a weak relationship between short and long-term rates, and it is not just the slope of the c

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South State Correspondent

AUGUST 3, 2023

Seasoned bankers call it “The Distributor Tactic,” and it is a little-discussed technique used for ages in banking to speed up the sales cycle to land commercial bank deposits and treasury management accounts faster. The key to this tactic is to know that very few commercial checking customers utilize any medium or high-value treasury management services at banks (see below).

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South State Correspondent

JULY 19, 2023

Our previous article discussed how the banking industry is taking advantage of interest rate swaps to offer borrowers lower rates, allowing banks to earn higher yields, generate substantial fee income, and protect deposit relationships. Of the largest 250 banks, 90% are using interest rate swaps, and because these largest 250 banks hold 83% of all loans, interest rate hedging tools are widely used in approximately 75% of the loan marketplace.

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South State Correspondent

JULY 19, 2023

If you are looking to see the future of how banks will utilize artificial intelligence (AI), look no further than marketing. Even if you are not a bank marketer, this article is worth a read to understand AI’s capabilities. Bank marketing AI is ground zero to showcase the transformation that is already taking place. We have spent countless hours researching and testing countless applications to provide you with our fourteen favorites that will boost your bank’s capabilities and alter your

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South State Correspondent

JUNE 30, 2023

Many banks pride themselves on superior customer service, and approximately 90% of all community banks believe that they provide an above-average level of customer service (the math cannot work that way). The reason bankers should want to provide an above-average level of service is to increase profitability, which translates to charging customers more in the form of higher loan rates, lower deposit rates, and more charged fees.

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South State Correspondent

MAY 31, 2023

It is a dangerous troupe in banking that an omnichannel approach is best. The concept that we allow the customer to choose how they want to bank often enables the bank to be passive in its position and give up agency. Branching, for example, is too expensive to be all things to all people. In this article, we look at cell phone tracking data for about 1,000 branches across the industry to derive insights to help banks increase branch engagement and boost branch profitability.

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South State Correspondent

MAY 30, 2023

The yield curve is currently inverted, and the FOMC may take a pause at its next meeting in June. Uncertainty about the evolution of the economy and the path of future interest rates and the unusual inverted yield curve shape affords a prime opportunity for bankers to provide sound, trusted advice to clients. This is the time for bankers to offer loan structuring solutions to help customers solve business problems, mitigate risk, and manage balance sheets and cash flows.

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South State Correspondent

MAY 22, 2023

We have used the term “second-order thinking” in our writings, and some bankers were curious about what exactly we mean. The term came to popularity in banking after Howard Marks wrote his seminal work on investments – The Most Important Thing. The “most important thing,” as described in the book, is the ability to drill down in order to get to the heart of an issue.

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South State Correspondent

MAY 23, 2023

Lending is getting riskier. Due to higher rates, inflation, and a slowing economy, the three essential credit metrics – probabilities of default (POD), POD rate of change, and POD volatility- have all materially increased from 2022. In this article, we look at what is happening at the state level, look at 30 common industries where credit risk is rising, and 30 industries where credit risk is the lowest.

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South State Correspondent

MAY 2, 2023

Last week, we published an article [ here ] discussing how fair value accounting for assets and liabilities may have prevented the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, even if sound risk mitigation practices were not resolutely embraced by management. We argued that valuing assets at historical value or measuring net interest margin (NIM) is not only a static view of cash flow but also backward-looking.

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South State Correspondent

MAY 3, 2023

Adjusting pricing for deposit tiering according to account size is essentially a tradition in banking. A typical bank’s money market accounts often have six tiers ranging from $2,000 to $100,000. The question that always comes up is whether you have suitable tiers and the correct number of tiers. Are you using your tiers to drive profit by giving low rates, or are the tiers just confusing your customer and driving-up operational cost?

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South State Correspondent

APRIL 1, 2023

While banking returned to some semblance of normal, many banks continued under short-selling pressure. In this article, we recap the latest data on deposits and banking in order to give you an updated picture. Deposit Balances The Fed’s H.8 report, published last Friday, provides an interesting snapshot of the banking system’s assets and liabilities through March 22.

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South State Correspondent

APRIL 3, 2023

In recent articles ( here and here ), we discussed why banks that take the interest rate movement risk demonstrate lower performance as measured by return on assets (ROA). Empirical evidence, historical bank failures, and common sense teach us that many risks do not translate to higher yields. The second article compared and contrasted community banks’ pay-for-risk and relationship business models.

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South State Correspondent

APRIL 3, 2023

Banking has now arrived at a speed that it cannot handle. While there have always been problems in banks’ asset-liability models (ALM) and liquidity stress test models, the current environment exacerbates this problem. Recent bank failures hurting public perceptions, the current market trends of higher rates, Quantitative Tightening, digital banking, social media, and a flight to safety have increased the difference between model and observed liability durations.

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South State Correspondent

MARCH 19, 2023

Most bankers are familiar with the concept of risk-return tradeoff, which states that potential return rises with an increase in risk. Low-risk assets pay lower potential returns, whereas high-risk assets pay higher potential returns. Further, some bankers are taught early in their careers that they are in the business of taking risks, and banks would not earn profits without it.

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South State Correspondent

MARCH 21, 2023

You have undoubtedly heard or seen the various commercials and likely have even received phone calls about Employee Retention Credit, or ERC. The need for a known, reliable brand creates an excellent opportunity for community banks to help small business customers while building deposit balances. We introduced our ERC Assist program several months ago so that we can attest to the efficacy of this product.

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Taxes Community Bank Community Operations 195

South State Correspondent

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

Many community banks today are willing to underwrite real estate secured loans on just two metrics: debt-service-coverage ratio (DSCR) and loan-to-appraised value (LTV). Banks typically approve credits above 1.20x DSCR and below 75% LTV – with many loan-specific factors that may skew these acceptable levels. For competitive reasons, we see banks dipping to 1.10X DSCR, and some deals are approved at 85% or even higher LTVs.

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South State Correspondent

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

In our industry, many banks need to put more thought into the science and strategy of deposit promotions. This is, unfortunately, occurring as the number of deposit promotions is approaching a near-term high, and banks are throwing away money like an untargeted ad campaign. Not leveraging media, not having a current deposit pricing strategy, not leveraging relasticity data , and taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach undermine the average deposit promotion strategy.

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South State Correspondent

JANUARY 11, 2023

Many banks work hard to have a low-cost deposit base only to undermine their efforts. One of the biggest mistakes bank make when pricing deposits is advertising an above-market rate, thereby shortening deposit duration and increasing negative convexity for that one account and the whole product offering. This subtle distinction might be lost on many inexperienced bankers, and it is worth a review – while the rate impacts an account, the mere advertising also affects the account.

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South State Correspondent

JANUARY 11, 2023

In a previous article ( HERE ), we analyzed industry performance and demonstrated that the average five-year net interest margin (NIM) and return on assets (ROA) are unrelated. The correlation coefficient (R 2 ) between these two variables is NEGATIVE 0.02 (essentially no explanatory relationship). This lack of connection has been a general observation in the banking industry for decades.

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South State Correspondent

JANUARY 3, 2023

Despite reaching the highest profitability in over a decade in 2022, US banks overall trade at a discount to other sectors as measured by P/E or P/Book, and approximately 53% of US banks have earned less than their cost of equity over the last five years. The high profitability for banks in 2022 was propelled by an increase in net interest margin (NIM), primarily due to rising interest rates as the Federal Reserve embarked on the most severe hiking cycle in the last four decades.

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South State Correspondent

JANUARY 4, 2023

A potential economic slowdown, slower rate rises, an inverted yield curve, and deposit stress likely make 2023 a trying year compared to 2022. Banks will need to balance these short-term challenges with longer-term strategic goals. For any banker looking for clarity, we present five New Year’s resolutions, no matter your size, that provide a roadmap to accomplish both the short and long-term objectives of a top-performing bank.

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South State Correspondent

NOVEMBER 14, 2022

The FOMC has raised short-term interest rates by 3.75% in the eight months between March and November. The market is now forecasting an additional 1.25% in hikes by early next year. Borrowers and lenders continue to be surprised by the speed of these increases. As short-term rates have gone up, so has the cost of credit for all borrowers, especially those who want to borrow for shorter terms (up to five years).

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South State Correspondent

OCTOBER 5, 2022

Treasuries Rethink a Fed Pivot. Treasury yields are higher this morning as investors rethink the probabilities of a Fed pivot anytime soon. While the UK backed off from its inflation-inducing fiscal plan, the central bank of Australia hiked rates by 25bps when 50bps was expected, and the flight-to-safety trade around Credit Suisse Bank all aided the argument for a possible Fed pivot, there was enough push back in Fed speeches to dim the odds of a near-term pivot.

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South State Correspondent

OCTOBER 4, 2022

While we believe in “Wowing” your customers as a concept, we don’t believe in it as a strategic focus as a bank. The idea is too challenging to execute. However, we do believe that every banker should understand what “customer delight” (we will use interchangeably with “wowing”) quantitatively looks like so delight can be operationalized.

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South State Correspondent

SEPTEMBER 23, 2022

The Fed and Their Forecasts. Now that the FOMC meeting has come and gone, and the Treasury and equity markets have resumed their selling as a consequence, let’s take a look at those forecasts and see what they might tell us. A year ago, the Fed was declaring rates would be lower for longer, and that they wouldn’t be tightening rates until 2024, at the earliest.

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South State Correspondent

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Treasury Yields Continue to Creep Higher. Another round of global risk asset selling has our markets ready to open lower and Treasuries are going along for the ride. S&P 500 equity futures are indicated lower by 51 points to 3868. The index bottomed at 3685 in June, so still a distance away but a retest of that low seems to be in the cards as the FOMC meeting looms.

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South State Correspondent

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

The banking industry’s cost of funds (COF) is highly correlated to short-term interest rates. However, as of Q2/22, the average community bank’s COF has risen only a few basis points. Community banks should be concerned about their COF because looking at current deposit conditions is like driving a car while looking at the rearview mirror.

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South State Correspondent

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Most financial institutions never see the actual cost of originating their products. To do so would require at least a rudimentary funds transfer pricing methodology, and many banks have not invested the time to derive a workable framework. Understanding a product’s cost structure is the first step towards accurate pricing and, more importantly, process improvement.

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