September 25, 2025 I attended an American Cancer Society CEO Council meeting last night, surrounded by dedicated individuals advancing the fight against the myriad diseases we collectively call cancer. Early detection topped the agenda, and we were each tasked with carrying that imperative back to our organizations—it's a critical frontier in saving lives. My own experience with cancer in my twenties underscores the harrowing challenges so many face and sharing it reminds me why this work matters deeply.
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September 11, 2025 Tuesday, September 11, 2001, began like any other late summer workday in New York City. I dropped my daughter off at her kindergarten on the Upper East Side and arrived a little late to my office at Bank of America Securities in midtown Manhattan around 8:30 AM. It was going to be a quiet morning as most of our management team was at our investor conference in San Francisco.
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August 25, 2025 Liquidity remains one of the most critical elements of a bank’s financial stability, directly affecting its ability to meet short-term obligations, sustain operations, and manage through unexpected shocks. The appropriate level of liquidity depends on a bank’s size, business model, risk tolerance, and regulatory classification, but the common thread across institutions is that regulators, investors, and counterparties all view liquidity as a primary measure of resilience.
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August 22, 2025 Stablecoins are real digital currency. While there are many types of digital assets ranging from highly volatile investments like Bitcoin to collectibles like NFTs and meme coins (e.g., the Trump coin), stablecoins are the most boring segment -- coins backed by real world holdings of the asset being tracked. US dollar stablecoins are backed by insured deposits, treasury bills or other short term money funds.
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July 22, 2025 Beginning in 2023, the banking sector has faced persistent headwinds in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), reminiscent of the 2008–2009 liquidity crisis—though with different underlying drivers, such as high interest rates and post-regional bank failure regulations. However, activity began to slowly rebound in 2024, and the first half of 2025 has shown continued momentum, fostering growing optimism for the rest of the year.
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July 17, 2025 The financial services industry—encompassing banks, credit unions, investment firms, insurance providers, and fintech companies—continues to face growing cyber risks in 2025. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report, the financial services industry experienced thousands of breaches globally, with an average cost of $4.88 million per incident— significantly higher than the global average.
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June 26, 2025 In baseball, not every swing is a home run. But standing still at the plate guarantees nothing. Today, small and mid-size banks find themselves in a similar dilemma with Artificial Intelligence (AI): should they strike early and risk missing, or wait for the perfect pitch—and potentially get benched by faster, more aggressive players?
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May 14, 2025 In 2025, my journey as a banking executive plunged me into the heart of AI’s transformative power, a force reshaping our industry with breathtaking speed. Through candid conversations with peers, dynamic forums hosted by Deloitte and Grant Thornton, and hands-on explorations, I witnessed AI evolve from a distant promise to a core driver of banking operations.
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Sep 13, 2024 2024 has been a challenging year for banking-as-a-service (BaaS). The collapse of Synapse served as a prime example of what can happen when banks do not adequately assess the risk they take on from outside fintech partners. Millions of consumers were left without access to hundreds of millions of their own dollars, and, naturally, regulators turned their attention to BaaS.
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March 7, 2024 On February 23rd, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced a consent order with Tennessee-based Lineage Bank regarding its third-party risk management program and financial technology (fintech) partners. This order underscores the regulatory attention on BaaS banks and fintech clients, signaling concerns about potential risks in the financial system.
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January 23, 2024 Last year saw turmoil in the banking industry. The multiple bank failures of 2023 sparked regulatory intensity that will undoubtedly continue into 2024 and the federal agencies’ commitment to addressing key priorities before the fall election will fan the flames.
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January 23, 2024 In 2023, bankers faced their most prolonged challenges to mergers since the 2008–2009 Global Liquidity Crisis. Optimism prevails for 2024. According to Bank Director's 2024 Bank M&A Survey, sponsored by Crowe, approximately one-third of bank executives and directors anticipate their bank will acquire another institution by the end of 2024.
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January 22, 2024 Rising interest rates, structural shifts in remote working, and changes in retail sales and distribution are having a dramatic impact on commercial real estate. While delinquencies, distress, and fire sales haven't been widespread so far, there's a looming concern as a maturity refinancing wall approaches this year. Underwriting and valuations are expected to undergo significant changes in 2024.
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December 20, 2023 The FDIC issued a new FIL directive targeting institutions with high concentrations in Commercial Real Estate (CRE). Their guidance outlines specific criteria triggering heightened regulatory monitoring, signaling increased scrutiny during the next examination, or possibly sooner.
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November 30, 2023 Rising interest rates and the structural shift towards remote work are significantly impacting commercial real estate. While delinquencies, distress, and fire sales haven't been common to date, this may soon change. Banks play a crucial role in commercial real estate projects, and many loans made in better times are now maturing in challenging times.
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October 12, 2023 On September 20th, FDIC Chairman Marty Gruenberg addressed the often overlooked but critically important issue of Financial Stability Risks posed by Nonbank Financial Institutions within the financial sector. These entities provide bank like financing services but do not hold a banking license, are not subject to banking regulations and oversight as are banks.
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October 6, 2023 Model Risk Management (MRM) is a systematic process used by financial institutions (FIs) to govern, evaluate, and mitigate risks related to the utilization of mathematical models and quantitative techniques in their operations, particularly in the context of internal controls and governance for financial operations.
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September 7, 2023 Liquidity is a critical component of a bank's financial stability, impacting its ability to meet short-term financial obligations and weather unforeseen economic challenges. The ideal level of liquidity for a bank is influenced by a multitude of factors, including its size, business model, risk tolerance, and regulatory obligations.
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August 29, 2023 The Financial Services industry's increasing intricacy, combined with recent adverse events, has heightened regulatory scrutiny on banks. This is further compounded by liquidity challenges, creating a landscape of unprecedented risk management demands.
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August 18, 2023 The most common measure of money supply, M2, experienced a dramatic and historic run up in 2020-21. As a result of this influx of funds, and the many dislocations attributable to COVID, reducing the money supply to mute the effects of inflation became a strategic focus of the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023.
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August 8, 2023 2023 has proven to be a challenging year for financial institutions. Since early 2022, the Federal Reserve contracted the money supply through open market activities, driving rates up, and the value of long-term bonds held in bank portfolios down.
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July 17, 2023 Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is a term a lot of financial institutions are hearing about from their regulators this year. At its heart, ERM is a comprehensive and strategic approach to identifying, assessing, and managing risks across an organization.
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April 11, 2023 In the banking industry, crossing the $1 billion asset threshold is a significant milestone, both regulatory and strategic. At this point banks are subjected to increased regulatory scrutiny at this level, including the requirements of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA).
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