Bank Innovation: Three Ideas

I usually take more time researching blog posts than writing them. Today is an exception. Rather than searching reputable sources for how this bank or that bank innovates, I thought I would give it to you straight from the gut.

Because experience tells me that bankers are struggling with innovation. There is so much buzz about it, we are challenged to separate the wheat from the chaff. Fintech, regtech, martech (new one), AI, RPA, Chat Bot, actual bot. What's a banker to do?

At its core, innovation should solve problems. Problems we know we have. Problems we may not know we have. Customer problems. Process problems.

And who knows or can anticipate these problems better than 1) our customers, and 2) our people. 

Here is my opinion that may not sit well with some of my readers: Innovation through rapid change will rarely be led by those long in the tooth. Their experience clouds their view of the pace of change, especially if their experience is with slow, methodical, decades-in-the making change. Because we tend to believe past is prologue.

I'm full of idioms when I shoot straight from the gut.

I'm not telling you to build an innovation culture surrounded by young people. Make innovation a bank wide call to arms. But in creating a culture of innovation, don't have your long in tooth leaders shooting down innovation arrow after arrow offered by your short timers.

Here is how I think you could foster such a culture:


1.  Make Innovation Problem-Resolution Based. Nothing is more frustrating than expending organizational resources on a non-existent problem. Changing IHOP's name to IHOB comes to mind. HSBC putting actual robots in branches is closer to home. Community financial institutions' resources are already taxed by technology and regulation. Don't over-tax by encouraging innovation on problems that don't exist either internally or with our customers. So when you establish an innovation culture, the subject line of the memo proposing the innovation should be the problem the institution is trying to solve. Let your competitors waste resources on cool gizmos that only end up being resume' bullets for tech weenies.


2.  Coach Long-Timers. I've called them stoppers, sergeants, and old-schoolers. These are the people that implemented processes in the past that your innovators are now trying to solve. Like the cumbersome process that may exist in your bank to send wires. The story goes like this: a fraudulent wire got through, the bank CEO sternly directed ops personnel to ensure it doesn't happen again, and it now takes a DNA sample for someone to get a wire out. And the owner of that process is the department manager of the innovator trying to solve for a problem created by their boss. Here is where senior management will earn their leadership chops. Turn the stoppers into innovators. Or at least facilitators of innovation.


3.  Recognize and Reward. I called for a bank wide awards ceremony in a post two years ago (Five Ideas to Build an Accountability Culture at Your Bank). Innovation awards should be a part of the ceremony. Perhaps a central feature of it. Hand out a trophy. Give out meaningful cash and/or vacation time. Salute Long-Timers for fostering the culture that led to innovation. Demonstrate tangible results. Emphasize the problem solved.


These are my ideas on how to build an innovation culture that focuses innovation efforts on solving problems, real or emerging.

What other ideas do you have, or have heard of, that can move financial institutions forward fast enough to build a long-term future?

~ Jeff

Back of the Envelope: Branch Acquisition Math Made Easy

On Sunday, July 31st, First Niagara Financial Group Inc. ($30.89 billion) agreed to buy 195 Northeast branches with approximately $15 billion in deposits from HSBC Holdings Plc for an approximate 6.67% deposit premium. During a conference call the next day, First Niagara President and CEO John Koelmel said the bank will divest 100 of the branches and will likely sell about two-thirds of the divested branches and close the others.

Aside from making the announcement on a Sunday, it is odd to strike a deal only to have to divest over half of the bounty. But the branch divestiture has some upstate New York financial institutions circling branches like hyenas around a wildebeest.

Branch purchases are on the mind of many CEOs these days as a means to accelerate growth to achieve the perceived scale necessary to absorb increasing, non value added costs such as compliance and systems security. Nobody knows how big they have to be, just bigger. Sort of like professional baseball players in the late 90's.

But it is not important enough to just be big. As noted in a prior post regarding how FIs failed to reduce expense and efficiency ratios as they grew (see link below), it is more important to be smart than big. Take this from one who invested some of my daughter's college money in Sovereign Bank, a bank that prayed at the altar of bigger is better, only to have me work harder to fund the money I lost. The lakehouse will have to wait.

Analyzing the impact of a branch purchase is not particularly complicated. I ran a hypothetical analysis on the back of an envelope for Schmidlap National Bank buying a $50 million in deposits branch from First Niagara (see photo).

Counter-intuitive for those not initiated in branch purchase is that the buyer actually receives funds.  For example, if Schmidlap buys $50 million in deposits for a $1 million premium and the value of the fixed assets of the branch (including real estate, tables, desks, everything except the signs) was $2 million, Schmidlap would get a check for $47 million at closing from First Niagara.

Except if you listen to some of my early adopter bank marketing or IT friends, First Niagara would more likely remit payment via a QR code on their smart phone.

Schmidlap would have to pay the interest expense on all $50 million of deposits. They would also have to amortize the premium paid over some period. In this hypothetical case, it amortizes straight line over 10 years. There are limited exceptions to having to amortize the entire premium. And First Niagara may very well be able to put some of their premium paid in goodwill. But when acquiring only one branch, such as what Schmidlap is doing, it is likely the whole premium will be amortized. This is a non-cash charge, but an expense nonetheless.

Since Schmidlap only receives $47 million in net proceeds, that is what they have to invest in either loans or the investment portfolio. Yields on bank qualified investments are so low these days, that for any branch purchase to be anything more than a single at best, the buyer would hope to deploy proceeds in loans. In Schmidlap's case, we assume that they can put the net proceeds to work at 3% and the deposits cost 1%.

When all is said and done, this branch purchase will only drop $385,000 to pre-tax profit. Readers may think that $385k is better than nothing. But this represents only 0.77% pre-tax return on assets. If Schmidlap has a better ratio at time of closing, than this transaction would bring their pre-tax ROA down.  If the bank allocated $4 million of capital (an 8% leverage ratio) to support the branch, that would yield a 9.63% pre-tax return on equity.

Not exactly a home run, would you agree? But Schmidlap would be bigger, just not better. Or am I looking at it wrong? Doesn't bigger equate to better? Barry Bonds thinks so.

~ Jeff

Does your bank achieve positive operating leverage? Post regarding expense & efficiency ratios:
http://jeff-for-banks.blogspot.com/2011/05/does-your-bank-achieve-positive.html