Main Session I – High Performance Idea Exchange
Facilitated by Julia Hernandez, Executive Vice President, The CorePoint
The High Performance Idea Exchange provides an open forum for senior lending and senior credit officers to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing community banks today. Facilitated by an industry expert, the session allows attendees to actively contribute and determine the topics of discussion. This unique format gives participants the chance to shape the session dialogue and fosters the free exchange of information among peers. Ideas shared typically focus on hot topics in the industry, including the various loan strategies, risk management tactics, services and products that have proven successful for today’s community banks. This session will:
- Consider ways to promote and encourage more innovation in the lending area for enhanced profitability
- Share ideas to increase earnings and compete effectively in the current lending environment
- Provide an opportunity for attendees to develop knowledge in areas of utmost importance to today’s lending and credit executives
Main Session II – High Performance Idea Exchange
Facilitated by John Hurlock, President, SMARTER Risk Management
The plateauing of interest rates at a new, higher level, is impacting the ability to find qualified borrowers and possibly the strength of your loan portfolio. Increased margins are being offset by higher costs and the potential for increased problem loans. In addition, new lending is flattening for some financial institutions.
Things to consider:
- How will changing the reserving process (to CECL) affect your lending?
- How have you changed the types of loans you are making? Have you restructured your loan portfolio? Have you tightened you credit standards?
- What new products and services are you offering?
- Are you acquiring loans from FinTechs or other third party providers? Will you change this in 2024?
- What technologies are you deploying?
- Do you think delinquencies and defaults will increase? Which portfolios are you monitoring?
- How have you modified your CRE stress test? Are you stressing more portfolios?
- How do you think the regulatory exam will be different in 2024?
- Will you be changing your staffing mix to beef up the Special Assets function?
General Session – Economic Update
Facilitated by Dr. Ed Seifried
As the calendar rolls into 2024, the US economy continues to baffle experts. The Fed is now into the second year of its battle against inflation which began in the spring of 2022. The FOMC has implemented one of its most powerful anti-inflationary policy regimes in decades. The fed policy rate currently stands at its highest level in over 20 some years. While inflation has responded well to the tightening imposed by the Fed, the current inflation rates remains well above the target of 2.0%.
Surprisingly, the US economy has remained recession free during the entire process. In fact, the GDP 2023(III) growth rate (2nd of 3 estimates) is a rather shockingly high 5.2%. However, monetary policy work with a significantly long, albeit, variable lag, and most experts suspect that the slowdown in economic activity due to almost two years of monetary tightening is sure to kick in soon.
Dr. Ed Seifried will seek answers to the following questions during his Spring 2024 Economic Update:
- What are the most serious threats to your Bank in 2024?
- Are interest rates at or near their cyclical peak?
- Will the Fed’s war against inflation finally be won in 2024?
- Will the much anticipated recession finally emerge in 2024?
Industry and Bank Pricing Trends
Facilitated by John Adams Principal & Head of Investment Banking, Sheshunoff & Co Investment Banking
The banking industry continues to deal with deposit cost pressure but as interest rates stabilize and possibly fall in 2024, net interest margin expansion is a possibility. This could lead to a rebound in bank stocks and bank M&A prices, as well as increased deal volume, reversing the trends seen in 2023 which began with the bank failures in March. To better inform banks as they plan strategically for future growth, we will study the current trends in bank performance and valuation levels for both bank stocks and M&A transactions after 2023’s historically weak M&A volume and pricing.
In this session we will:
- Evaluate community bank performance trends including loan and deposit growth, NIM changes
- Study various factors that impact bank profits and shareholder value
- Examine publicly-traded bank stocks and the likely implications for M&A pricing and activity
- Discuss the outlook for bank M&A from the perspective of both buyers and sellers
- Consider what to expect from bank stocks and M&A throughout 2024 in light of the expected interest rate environment