The Banker Next Door (BND) weekly live stream show. Strategy Room provides financial news, commentary, top stories in the business world, economic indicators, and all things banking for the week.

This is a clip from the BND: Strategy Room Live Stream from 11-29-2025. This clip examines 5 articles on AI looking at how the economy has become dependent on AI, the questionable accounting practices being used, Sovereign AI, Bond sales from AI related companies, and the development of new nuclear power plants.

This episode reviews the Federal Reserve Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS) on bank lending practices for October 2025. Some of the key findings of the report include tighter lending standards and stronger demand for C&I loans, unchanged lending standards and demand for CRE loans. Loan standards for residential mortgage loans including HELOCs remained unchanged, but banks did report higher demand for all residential mortgage categories. Loan standards and demand for credit cards, and other consumer loans remain unchanged. Banks reported having eased standards on auto loans. Links to the Fed website, the report, and charts are included below.

Link:  The Fed - The October 2025 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices - Table 2

Link: sloos-202510.pdf

Link: (S-PLUS Graphics)

The federal bank regulatory agencies, as members of FFIEC, released data on small business, small farm, and community development lending during 2024. CRA regulations require the agencies to annually disclose this data. The data collected showed 731 reporting lenders in 2024. The lenders made 9.1 million small-business loans totaling approximately $276 billion. This was an 8.1% increase in number of loans and 6.2% increase in dollar amount over 2023. This episode reviewed a report from the OCC titled “Findings from analysis of nationwide statistics for 2024 Community Reinvestment Act data fact sheet.” Links to the press release and report are included below.

Link: Federal Bank Regulatory Agencies Release 2024 Small Business, Small Farm, and Community Development Lending Data | OCC

Link: Fact Sheet - 2024 Small Business, Small Farm, and Community Development Lending Data

This is a clip from the BND: Strategy Room Live Stream from 11-29-2025. This clip provides an update on the Federal Reserve and the current liquidity issues in the REPO market.

This episode examines a research report from CSBS titled “Too small to scale: What 10 years of data say about community bank compliance costs.” The report found that smaller banks reported spending 11% to 15.5% of their payroll on compliance tasks, compared with 6% to 10% for the largest banks. Data-processing costs consume 16.5% to 22% of small banks’ budgets versus 10% to 14% for larger banks. Consulting costs diverged the most, at roughly 50% to 64% for the smallest banks compared to 19% to 30% for the biggest banks. A link to the report is included below.   

Link: Too Small to Scale: What 10 Years of Data Say About Community Bank Compliance Costs | CSBS

This episode examines Bank Director’s 2026 Bank M&A Survey. Bank Director found that “the gap between buyers’ and sellers’ pricing expectations may be closing as potential acquirers look for ways to add low-cost deposits.” Some of the key findings revolve around boardroom discussions, angling for a better price, mixed plans on subordinated debt, organic growth drivers, limited interest in Crypto, and optimism on the economy. Links to the Bank Director article and the survey are included below. 

Link:  2026 Bank M&A Survey: Improved Pricing Brings Sellers to the Table | Bank Director

Link: MA-Report-2026-Open.pdf

This episode reviews a recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco titled “What is a Tariff Shock? Insights from 150 years of Tariff Policy.” The main finding of the report is that Tariffs are deflationary! “We find that a tariff hike raises unemployment (lowers economic activity) and lowers inflation.” With all the focus on Tariffs this year, this report is a must see! A link to the report is included below.   

Link:  What is a Tariff Shock? Insights from 150 years of Tariff Policy

This is a clip from the BND: Strategy Room Live Stream from 11-29-2025. This clip reviews recent retail sales data and takes a look at how sales are performing on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday.

The Banker Next Door (BND) weekly live stream show. Strategy Room provides financial news, commentary, top stories in the business world, economic indicators, and all things banking for the week.