Bankers: If We're Serious About Helping Clients, What About These Two Products?

With all of the automation of financial products, one would think managing finances would be simple. Much more so than when our grandparents saved for the coal delivery in an envelope in the night stand.

My focus today is on consumer banking. Which is becoming more challenging for the community financial institution due to heavy competition from money center and super-regional banks, credit unions, and fintech firms. Do we cede the field? Hand Wells Fargo our sword, as it were?

I don't think community financial institutions can fund themselves solely from their commercial customers. They struggle serving deposit-only or loan-lite small businesses because commercial lenders have no interest and branch skills have not been elevated to create the confidence needed to have business banking conversations. If a commercial lender has 20% in compensating balances in his/ her portfolio, that would be a win.

But what about the funding for the other 80%?

No, I think community financial institutions should develop a solid strategy for retail banking. As my industry colleague Ron Shevlin aptly pointed out in his 2015 book, Smarter Bank, money management will be more important than money movement. Actually, since it was written four years ago, I might be as bold to say that it IS more important. 

This reminds me of a scene from Date Night with Steve Carell and Tina Fey. Steve played an accountant, and informed a couple that they would be receiving a nice tax refund. To which he suggested opening a Roth IRA. Not interested. They were going on vacation. The world needs more boring advisors like Steve in Date Night. Should your institution be the bore? To help your customers make better financial decisions?

If you believe yes, how is your financial institution equipped to handle such a business model? Not just in employee capabilities, but in products?

A 2018 Harvard Business Review article emphasized a growing financial problem among our retail customers: they are not prepared for retirement. HBR proposed what to do about it. But I ask my readers, what do you intend to do about it?

As HBR puts it:

"Ultimately, the shift from defined benefit pension plans to employee-directed defined contribution 401(k)s is the major driver of the impending retirement crisis. Beginning in the 1980s, this move helped companies reduce their retirement liabilities and better meet their quarterly financial targets, but put an unmanageable burden on employees."

Helping our customers manage this burden requires a change in strategy, from one of "more products per customer", to "promoting our customers' financial well being." If your financial institution is embarking on delivering the latter strategy to your customers, I think there are product gaps. Two come to mind.

Much Maligned Products

The below products are much maligned due to high reputation risk, outsized fees, and are difficult to deliver due to high maintenance costs or regulatory/licensing requirements. But to help our retail customers navigate retirement, they are legitimate options that need a trusted person to deliver, be that an advisor or banker. 

Annuities

Many financial institutions "sell" annuities. But many advisors say this product is not worth it. Sales loads and ongoing fees are too costly compared to alternatives. And I agree. Vanguard was known as the low-fee producer, and they are transitioning account administration of their annuity products to Trans America. And I must admit, finding a legitimate website for objective comparison is difficult because annuity providers clog searches with pitches. And they sponsor websites that might appear objective.

Which screams for somebody to be on the side of the customer.

An annuity, properly constructed, can help your retail customers reduce the risk of running out of money in retirement. Much like a defined benefit plan does. A deferred annuity, or an immediate annuity, can be structured to provide fixed payments as long as the buyer lives. And to protect the buyer from pre-mature death and losing their savings, an insurance rider can be applied to reduce that risk.

It doesn't seem like this should be something that has a 2% annual expense ratio and a 6% sales load. Especially since your customers can pay no sales load and a 25 basis points fee for a robo advisor or an index fund. The costs are too great to overcome. 

This is an opportunity for a consortium of financial institutions, perhaps through their national trade associations, to develop products such as an annuity that protects community financial institution retail customers from running out of money in retirement. Without hyper-feeing the customer in the interim. 

The offloading of retirement risk from employers to employees scream for it. Why would banks sit on the sideline of such an important financial goal?

Reverse Mortgages

Or as the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development calls them, Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM). There's an acronym for everything. Here's another product that requires some savvy web surfing to look up legitimate sources of information that is outside the product pushers purview. Imagine being a retired utility worker that is concerned about running out of money? No wonder they turn to Magnum P.I. and The Fonz for financial advice.

This one is close to home because I described it to my mom to alleviate her concerns about outliving her money. She owns her home outright. As many seniors or near-retirees do. A reverse mortgage is a legitimate product almost totally avoided by financial institutions due to reputation risk. Imagine the scenario, mom takes reverse mortgage but fails to tell her children. She passes and nobody keeps up with the payments. The bank forecloses. Geraldo is called in. Adult children on TV in tears. Holding grandchildren that thought the house was going to pay for school and give them a leg up on life. Sad.

This is not an unsolvable risk. It may, and likely does, require financial institutions to look beyond the mandatory disclosures. Because as I hear it, heirs not knowing about the loans are a big problem. Couldn't we solve for this and other risks and maintain our position as our retail customers' advocate?

A reverse mortgage requires little organizational effort in today's technology world. The loan origination resources wouldn't be materially different than a home equity loan. Loan maintenance would be even less. We already track that borrowers pay their real estate taxes on regular mortgages. The biggest difference will be at the end of the loan, where the full balance is due when the owner sells the house or passes away. And that effort and risk can be priced into the loan, without gouging.

But if we do have a retirement crisis, a reverse mortgage can be part of the solution.

Product Promoter or Retail Customer Advocate

Helping retail customers prepare for and navigate retirement can be a strategic objective of your institution. It is particularly important as so many Baby Boomers are taking their gold watch every day. Many if not most are ill-prepared for what is next. Becoming their advocate can be the best advertisement for attracting younger retail customers to your bank.

Because there are a lot of hucksters out there. Pushing Product.

~ Jeff

Consumer Lending: Should Banks Do It?

We’re running out of assets.

When I first read Standards Needed for Safe, Small Installment Loans from Banks, Credit Unions by the Pew Charitable Trusts that encouraged financial institutions to get back into small ticket consumer lending, I thought “what are they nuts!”

Consumer loans for those banks that utilize my firm’s outsourced profitability reporting service lost (0.26%) as a percent of the average consumer loan portfolio in the fourth quarter. And it wasn’t an anomaly. Ever since we formed our company in 2001, this has been the case.

Sure, home equity lines of credit made 0.71% for the fourth quarter. But it was the only sub-product that showed a profit. Fixed home equity loans… nope. Indirect loans, unsecured personal loans? No and no. So why would banks expand small-ticket, unsecured personal lending?

Because we’re running out of assets. Pretty soon we’ll be left with small to mid-sized business loans and commercial real estate that isn't big enough for large banks or conduits. And there are FinTechs, loan brokers, insurance companies, and investment funds chipping away at them.

Mortgage lending is getting away from us. Mortgage bankers and brokers own a significant share of market (although less than prior to the 2007-08 financial crisis). And Quicken Loans is in the top 5 HMDA market share in nearly every market we analyze. Oh, and Quicken is hammering away at home equity lending too.

We lost auto loans to the indirect market. Who comes to our branch for a car loan today? If we don’t consider how we intend to defend our small business and CRE lending, and re-enter some of these other loan markets, we may end up as a balance sheet for hire. Which we already do via buying mortgage back securities and using loan brokers in metro areas.

Are you ready to be Web Bank, part deux?

So I reconsidered my knee-jerk reaction to the Pew Charitable Trusts report. Most community financial institution strategies has some sort of “community” focus. It’s implied whenever someone says “we’re a community bank”. Which nearly everyone does. Even the big banks. So maybe we should put some moxy behind those words. Profitable moxy, though. Not charitable moxy.

Why do consumer loans consistently lose money? Looking at our peer group numbers, the consumer loan costs a little above $1,100 per year in operating expense to originate and maintain. Expensive. This is a fully absorbed number. Meaning that all bank resources that are dedicated to the consumer loan function is fully allocated to the product, whether they are being used or not. And recently, they have not been used.

For example, there is a fair amount of branch expense in that number, because branches are typically responsible for originating those loans, and participate in their maintenance. If we got rid of consumer loans, that expense would migrate elsewhere. And if we are not originating new loans, then resources dedicated to origination, such as branch staff and credit, for example, are dormant but must be paid for by the existing loans in the portfolio.

Four Ways to Bring Back Consumer Loans, Drive Volume, and Increase Profits

1.  Make consumer loans more than an accommodation. Not many financial institutions consider consumer loans as a strategically important product group that will drive growth and profitability into the future. Perhaps it is because of the hurdles to achieving meaningful growth and market share. Or the competitors that wedged themselves into the dominant market position. But if executive management and the Board aren't committed to pursuing consumer lending to be more prominent on your balance sheet, then you will not succeed.

2. Align your credit culture and risk appetite to be successful consumer lenders. It is not lost on me that the last bastion of consumer lending at banks is home equity loans. Real estate secured. Hard collateral. Relatively low charge-offs. It is difficult to change that mindset when doing loans with little to no collateral, such as small ticket consumer or credit cards. Charge-off rates of 4%-5% with no collateral? Yes. Get used to it (other than home equity). Or don't do it.

3. Drive down costs. Regulation has driven up costs and made us gun shy. But we can't continue to put $1,100 of resources per year into a consumer loan. Especially if the loan balance is $2,500. How can we possibly make money on that? We can't. The ABA recently conducted a survey on the State of Digital Lending (see chart) that said that, although consumers were happy with how smooth and quick online lending decisions were made, online lenders only received a 26% approval rating, versus 75% for banks. Driving more volume will drive down costs by putting under-utilized resources to work, and digitizing end-to-end will reduce the amount of resources needed for consumer lending. 

4. Price right. Even if banks cut the cost of originating and maintaining consumer loans in half, to $550, what rate will they have to charge to make a reasonable profit? Let's say a reasonable profit is a 1.5% pre-tax profit as a percent of the portfolio. And the non-home equity portion experienced a 4.5% charge-off rate. And the cost of funds for such lending is 1%. If the average loan size was, say, $3,000, the bank would have to charge an effective yield of 25.3% (($550/3,000)+1%+4.5%+1.5%). Those rates get the scrutiny of do-gooders and "champions of the people" that could cause negative press. And keeps community financial institutions out of this business. Take note Pew Charitable Trusts. However, knowing this math, the bank can work at pressing the levers needed to do this lending profitably, at the right price, that benefits borrowers and the banks. And keeps those borrowers out of the hands of the sharks that prey on their misfortune.

Should we give up on consumer lending?

~ Jeff