Posts by John Watts

What We Learned in 2020: A New Digital Banking Strategy

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The need to deliver a digital experience to a bank’s small business and commercial customers has been a rallying cry for several years. While the need has been there, the digital focus has been heavily centered on the consumer customer....

Coronavirus Impact on Banking: Wall Street vs. Main Street

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One month ago, life was good. Spring was just around the corner. Many people were getting ready for spring break. The dogwoods and azaleas were about to bloom at Augusta National for the Masters. Now, none of that matters. We...

FinTechs: Where Are They Now?

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L ending to small businesses by FinTechs has been a hot topic. Investors have been investing significant dollars in to companies like Lending Club and Prosper. Articles in the past have been predicting the end of traditional banking and lending...

Life Lessons: How They Apply to Lending

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At the end of last year, I cleaned out some old files and found a list of life lessons from years ago. As I reread the list, I kept thinking how applicable the lessons are to successful lending. Many are...

Law of Nature

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The definition of a “law of nature” is “a regular occurring or apparently inevitable phenomenon observable in human society.” The sun rises in the east, sets in the west. Death and taxes are inevitable. In finance and business, capital needs...

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same…

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There are many reasons for a banker to lose sleep these days. The issues affecting banks year after year are myriad: increasing competition from traditional and non-traditional players, margin compression in the low interest rate environment playing havoc with bank...