The Bankers Of God

[Shawana Kallhoff]

TheConsumer Bankers Association is the only member-driven trade association focused exclusively on retail banking. CBA partners with the nation's leading retail banks to promote sound policy, prepare the next generation of diverse bankers to lead the industry, and finance the dreams of consumers and small businesses.

We think the bankers and banks in Ohio should receive the recognition they deserve! That is why we created the OBL Industry Awards. We are now accepting nominations for these prestigious awards. Nominate a bank, coworker or even yourself! For details and award criteria, click here.

Jul10 Supreme Court Ruling to Have Major Regulatory Impact on Banks

With the overturn of the so called Chevron Doctrine the federal banking regulators will face judicial scrutiny like never before.

Community development banks are community banks committed to helping the underserved. All community development banks are certified as CDFIs by the U.S. Treasury, a designation which affirms their focus on mission. Read more here.

Community Development Bankers Association (CDBA) is the national trade association of the community development bank sector. As the voice and champion of the industry, we educate policy makers, regulators, and legislators on the importance of community development banks and thrifts with a mission of serving low- and moderate-income communities.

Community development banks provide low- and moderate-income communities the credit they need. They lend to small businesses, schools and hospitals. They help people turned away by other banks build credit by offering safe, responsible small-dollar loans. Learn more here.

Goldsmith Romero, who currently sits on the board of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was just recently announced as the Biden administration's pick to lead the FDIC in the wake of a workplace misbehavior scandal at the agency.

The committee, in the same hearing, will also consider the nominations of Caroline Crenshaw to be a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kristin Johnson to be assistant secretary of financial institutions at the Treasury Department and Gordon Ito to be a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council with expertise in insurance."

"Technology has changed the way financial services companies operate. As financial institutions innovate and develop new solutions, an unfortunate side effect of the banking industry's growth is that some communities have been marginalized or ignored.

The association started shortly after the establishment by the U.S. Treasury Department of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which offers community development banks resources and programs that invest federal dollars to help them support economically disadvantaged communities."

"President Joe Biden's appointment of Christy Goldsmith Romero to head the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will put the longtime regulator atop a powerful agency that's been torched by findings of rampant harassment and toxic behavior.

If she's approved by the Senate, repairing that culture will be her first job. But she'll also be tasked with policing more than 4,500 banks that hold about $24 trillion in assets. And if you know Goldsmith Romero, you know she takes a dim view of regulators who downplay their enforcement responsibilities.

Here's how Goldsmith Romero once described her responsibilities as special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the massive government bank rescue operation where she was charged with leading 140 people (including 85 special agents) who investigated fraud, waste and abuse at financial institutions:

'I knew that we could not turn to the bank regulators to point us to the fraud,' she said, describing her efforts to develop 'innovative techniques' to identify bad behavior. In some cases, she said, 'bankers have been going to jail and being sentenced to prison.'"

"After a huge infusion of capital from the Treasury Department, community development financial and minority depository institutions needed deposits. A lot of deposits. So, they banded together to create a program for socially minded investors seeking to make an impact while ensuring their funds are safe.

'This is a new-money program,' said Brian Argrett, CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based City First Bank. 'It opens the window to start a deposit relationship and then to be able to figure out, in collaboration with that depositor, how else we can satisfy our mutual goals, particularly within the local market, low-and-moderate-income communities and communities of color.'"

The House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee has approved the Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act. The top line for the CDFI Fund is $276.6 million, which is approximately $48 million below the FY 24 enacted levels and the FY 25 budget request. Within that total, the draft bill recommends reductions for Bank Enterprise Award, FA/TA funding, Small Dollar loans, and no funding for Healthy Food Financing and Economic Mobility. NACA appropriations increase by $ 10 million.

If there's one thing we've seen clearly in the fallout from Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, it's that today's bankers need to have a deep understanding of how bank performance actually works. WBA's Understanding Bank Performance curriculum, taught by a graduate of Pacific Coast Banking School, is designed to provide just that, in an engaging, relevant, and comprehensive fashion. WBA can also deliver this program to your organization as a custom, bespoke offering. Reach out to us if you'd like to learn more.

We are excited to announce that CareerWork$ has reorganized to become an affiliate of the Washington Bankers Association. CareerWork$ operates BankWork$, a long-standing WBA partner program. The program provides free job training focused on the banking and general job preparation. The WBA first endorsed the BankWork$ program in 2015. Under the reorganization, members of the banking community and participants of the BankWork$ program will benefit from an expanded range of resources designed to foster professional growth and industry innovation. Together, both organizations will work to ensure that individuals across the country have the tools and support they need to thrive in their careers. Read the full announcement here.

Hi! My name's Matt. I write about the financial industry for a site called Dealbreaker. Before that, I made a living as an investment banker, underwriting convertible bonds and other equity-linked securities and selling equity derivatives to corporate clients. (I know!)

At Dealbreaker I mostly write for an audience of financial industry professionals, the sort of people who would understand (but probably not read) that job description I just wrote. But since these days the workings of the financial industry are of broader interest, the Planet Money team thought it might be fun for me to occasionally answer questions here about how finance works. We'll start with some generic questions; if you have questions you'd like me to answer, please email plane...@npr.org and write "ask a banker" in the subject line. Or ask on Twitter (@planetmoney).

I can't put it better than the senior banker who once asked me why I had chosen to "become a traveling money salesman." I've dined out on that phrase ever since, and probably owe him royalties, though I'm not going to sweat it since he's quite rich.

Investment bankers are traveling salesmen (and women), which explains why many of them are so ornery so much of the time. It also explains why, while in popular perception investment bankers are arrogant jerks wearing Herms ties, actual individual bankers tend to be perceived by their clients as obsequious and needy. Because they're selling something. Specifically, they're selling money to companies.

Say a company wants to get money to build a factory or hire more workers or whatever. It can get that money by issuing stock or bonds. "Issuing bonds" just means "borrowing money from strangers." "Issuing stock" is more existentially complicated, but "giving people partial ownership of your company in exchange for cash" is good enough.

Issuing stocks or bonds requires finding someone to buy them, and most companies aren't good at selling stocks and bonds, so they hire investment bankers as middlemen to help them find people looking to invest money.

(Incidentally, "investment bankers," as the term is used in the industry, work at investment banks that employ trading and sales staffs, who make trades and sell stocks and bonds to investors. These people are not normally called "investment bankers." In fact, the large majority of people at investment banks are not "investment bankers." Confusing, I know.)

When a company decides to issue stock or bonds, investment bankers perform "due diligence" to make sure the company's accountants will say that the company's financial statements say what they say they say. Then they write up a prospectus explaining the risks and benefits of buying the stock or the bond.

Finally, investment bankers hand the prospectus to the sales and trading staffs at their bank, who go out and convince mutual funds, hedge funds, rich people, and moderately less rich people to buy the stocks and bonds, while the investment bankers stand around saying helpful things like "good luck!" and "try to sell more stock!" and "hurry!"

In future columns, I'll discuss the other main thing investment bankers do: Mergers & Acquisitions. And I'll talk in more detail about what I actually did in the industry. Let me know what else you'd like me to talk about.

DE&I. What is it? Neelam Chand, Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Zions Bank explains Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and brings valuable insight into why we need to get comfortable with engaging in uncomfortable conversations in order to begin the process of empathy and inspire positive change.

3a8082e126