Main Street Banking: A Podcast for Community Bankers

Welcome to Barret Grad School!!! It's going to be a great year this year as we try out some new things. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast, tell your friends to subscribe to the podcast, and enjoy yourself during the week.

The next several episodes are going to be a little different. We want to show you what our grad school really looks like but also provide our students with a new source for information and engagement. We're going to be using the podcast for something a little different than the traditional podcast use. We'll see if it works! Let us know what you think.

There is an elephant in the room for community banks and that is the Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) that is within several years of implementation. Potentially, it could have an impact to banks' retained earnings but also has an impact on loan pricing and generally how banks view their credit exposure. It's a shift that is coming...that's not being discussed as it needs to be in the community banking world. Robby Holditch with Moody's Analytics stops by to discuss what CECL is and it's potential impact on the community bank.

Jim Reber of ICBA Securities is back for his quarterly economic update for community banks. The last 90 days have seen some interesting happenings in the interest rate environment. Quality advice from subject matter experts such as Jim is vital the long-term health of your community bank.

ICBA Live 2019 has been amazing and I don't know that a podcast episode (or two) can really capture the excitement and all of the information that community bankers experienced here in Nashville. The community banking industry is in amazing hands with the ICBA leadership, the bankers I met were amazing and genuinely love the industry, our fellow vendors, too, are deeply involved with making community banking (and therefore every local community) a better place to be. It's inspiring.

From Music City, we are at #ICBALIVE19!! It is an outstanding event for the community banking industry as the best and brightest get together to share ideas, see the latest trends, meet new friends, and celebrate old ones.

Today, Monday, was the graduation of sorts for the ThinkTECH Finalists where they made their presentation to the banking industry. I continue to be impressed with each of the finalists and what they are delivering.

John Waupsh, Chief Innovation Officer at Kasasa, has written an outstanding book entitled "Bankruption" about how FinTech's impact on community banks and what our response should be. There is no sugar-coating in his words, but the insights are very rewarding. This is a must-read for community bankers...regardless of title.

Check it out on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Bankruption-Community-Banking-Survive-Fintech/dp/1119273854/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550861516&sr=8-1&keywords=bankruption

The ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator powered by The Venture Center is a brand new initiative to bring community banks and fintech entrepreneurs together in a way that has not been done to this scale and with this much attention to shortening the "feedback loop" that banks and fintechs must face.

Our quarterly "Main Street Economic Update" for Q1 2019. We've seen a good bit of volatility in the markets over the past several months. Jim sits down and gives us some clarity into the markets.

We sit down with Sarah Bacehowski from Mills Marketing to talk about her thoughts on omni-digital banking. What I found so interesting about her presentation here and at Lead FWD, was her ability to communicate what this new method of banking will look and feel like to our customers.