View from CBA April 5, 2013

Administration Urges "Subjective Judgment" in Lending

This article from the Washington Post says it all: "(Obama Administration) Officials are also encouraging lenders to use more subjective judgment in determining whether to offer a loan and are seeking to make it easier for people who owe more than their properties are worth to refinance at today’s low interest rates, among other steps."

This brought on an immediate rebuttal: “If that were to come to pass, that would open the floodgates to highly excessive risk and would send us right back on the same path we were just trying to recover from,” said Ed Pinto, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former top executive at mortgage giant Fannie Mae."

I know our industry will continue to provide loans to qualified borrowers who meet the criteria established in collaboration with the regulators. When I first read the article, I thought it was possibly still April 1st.

CBA/Forrester Research Shows Online Banking Investments Still Biggest

Our Digital Channels Committee in collaboration with Forrester Research unveiled the results of the second annual State of North American Digital Banking survey. Key findings:

  • Online banking still receives the greatest share of funding
  • 20 of the 21 banks surveyed have a multichannel strategy
  • Most of these banks who have a multichannel strategy do not currently have the budget needed to fund these initiatives.

CBA LIVE attendees can access the full results at cbalivepresentations.net. Thanks to the Digital Channels Committee, under the leadership of Alon Kupferman (M&T Bank) and Allison Landers (TD Bank), for generating this research.

Application Season

This week marked Opening Day and that means there are only 6 weeks left to the GSRBM banking school application deadline (May 15th). I encourage you to visit our website now to learn more about the school or contact our Education team for more information. Enrollment is limited and competitive for this year's classes: July 21 - 31 in Greenville, SC.