May, 2011

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Three Banking Lessons Learned from Girls Lacrosse

Jeff For Banks

'Several months ago I was enlisted to coach middle school girls lacrosse. It is a relatively new sport to our area, so my learning curve was steep. We are nearing the end of our season, and yesterday we completed our first double header sweep. As I reflected on how far the girls have come, I thought of the lessons we learned along the way. These lessons apply to many areas of life, including the banking profession.

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Does your bank achieve positive operating leverage?

Jeff For Banks

'When a significant portion of your cost structure is fixed, then growing revenues should generate positive operating leverage. the cost of generating the next $100 of revenue should be less expensive than generating the previous $100. This fundamental logic stands behind the banking industry buzzphrase, economies of scale. The fixed cost of your IT infrastructure is less on a relative basis for a $1 billion in assets financial institution (FI) than a $500 million in assets FI.

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Is your strategy and organization built around the customer?

Jeff For Banks

'I was researching videos of positive customer experiences for another potential post when I discovered this gem from Forrester Research done in 2007. Four years in our information driven society may seem like a lifetime but I listened with fascination as Forrester Research Principal Analyst Kerry Bodine described key elements of a customer centric culture.

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Four Not-So-Serious Don'ts for Financial Institutions

Jeff For Banks

'Movies tell great stories. Most times they exaggerate real life. So I am pouncing on the opportunity to over-dramatize four things I don''t think FI''s should do. 1. Don''t ignore your CEOs age. Prognosticators are predicting incredible shrinkage in community FIs because of regulatory burden. I think it is equally likely that boards throw in the towel because their CEO is far closer to the grave than the cradle, like Aunt Edna from National Lampoon''s Vacation.

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Back to Basics with Reconciliations

Join us in this webinar, where we share best practices on how to think about the reconciliation work each month, when best to do reconciliations, how they should be prepared, and some common pitfalls to avoid. Learning Objectives: This course objective is to understand how to properly prepare and review balance sheet reconciliations and its impact on the financial statements.

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The coming bank consolidation. but not why you might think.

Jeff For Banks

'If I had a nickel for every time an investment banker predicted the mass consolidation of our industry I could buy a free round to all attendees at next month''s Financial Managers'' Society Forum. Financial Institutions need greater scale to offset the rising regulatory burden imposed by Dodd-Frank and soon to be imposed by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) is the most often cited reason.