The Banker Next Door

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on September 19, 2026. The AI trade is imploding! In less than 30 days the narrative went from everything is great, we are making money, its IPO time, to there might be a few problems with our Frontier AI, to these AI systems might destroy us, to please regulate us now!!! The IPOs are on hold, the revenue streams are all BS, companies have blown through their AI tokens, Chine...

A new independent review conducted for the Federal Reserve by Starling Advisory Group on the failure of Silicon Valley Bank examined the role of the Federal Reserve supervisory staff to ask if they failed in their oversight of the bank. The report detailed seven critical findings. In releasing the findings, Michelle Bowman stated that the Fed supervisory staff should have known and that SVB’s failure fundamentally shook publi...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on September 19, 2026. As the situation with Mark Walter and his companies continues to unfold, it appears that he used retirement assets for his spending binge on professional sports franchises. As this comes to light, BlackRock is hard at work to get Private Credit and other alternative assets stuffed into your 401(k). The narrative here is that suddenly Wall Street wants e...

De Novo or start up credit unions are not performing well. Of the last five de novo credit unions, two have been liquidated and one is currently operating as “uncapitalized.” The two credit unions that were liquidated both failed within six months of starting, making them some of the quickest failures since 2016. Former National Credit Union Administration Chairman Todd Harper stated, “New credit unions often unfo...

Bank News: PNC, Regions, and Citizens executives don’t want to be distracted by potential M&A deals. PNC could be open to M&A, but current valuations make a deal unlikely. Citizens is open to bolt-on deals if they focus on the payments area. Bank7 is seeking to purchase 100% of Century Financial. Bank charter approvals more than double from 2025. Synapse victims turn to small-claims court as they are still trying to r...

This is part 41 of the crypto series. The Clarity Act failed to advance out of the U.S. Senate. The measure failed on a 50-49 vote. It needed 60 votes to pass. Every democrat and three republicans voted against it. The failure puts the bill in serious jeopardy with the midterm elections coming up in November and the House of Representatives in recess until after the election. Who is to blame? The crypto industry appears to be placi...

According to Bank Director’s 2026 Technology Survey, banks are feeling the pressure from increased competition, emerging technology, and changing strategy. Key findings from the report include efficiency over growth, getting educated on artificial intelligence, gauging AI usage, integration challenges, prioritizing payments, and most not sold on crypto. A majority of bank executives view financial technology firms including B...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on September 12, 2026. Private Credit favorites Blue Owl and Jefferies face new issues. Jefferies is staring down a potential $500 million loss from Radiant World. Blue Owl Capital cut the value of its loans to Loparex to near zero. In addition, the current oil shock is testing Private Credit borrowers with high debt loads. Smaller borrowers are seeing rising defaults. The ep...

Who is Jane Street? They are a mysterious high frequency trading hedge fund on Wall Street that seems to have its hands in everything with some questionable behavior. Jane Street was started in 2000 by three former executives of Susquehanna International Group and an IBM developer. There is no public face to the firm, and they do not like publicity. New hires are discouraged from drawing any attention to themselves or the firm. Tha...

Italian bank Monte Dei Paschi (BMPS) has had quite the saga over the last two years. BMPS has had CEO issues, multiple potential merger partners, rogue board members, and tons of media! Everything a good banking soap opera needs. When last we left BMPS, Intesa Sanpaolo made an offer to purchase the world’s oldest bank seeking to create the “UBS” of Italy. BMPS responded by attempting to purchase Banco BPM. Intesa ...

Security Bank & Trust President Andy Schornack worked with several employees to develop an AI credit workflow solution for processing commercial loans. Andy had investigated several fintech providers and found they had several product solutions, but the costs were prohibitive at five and six figures. These were very high costs for a $1.3 billion community bank to absorb. Andy’s wife, being in the software business, sugges...

Bain & Company recently released a report detailing their outlook on U.S. bank M&A through 2030. Some of the key findings include: 1) there will be at least one bank to cross the $1 trillion assets threshold but could be as high as 2-3 via M&A, 2) There will be continued consolidation for small and larger regional banks, 3) There will be continued consolidation for community banks, 4) Banks should consider under-the-rad...

Bank News: Chime to buy Stride for $590 million. Chime outgrew their partner model. Will the Chime deal lead to further fintech-bank competition? EverBank to purchase WaFd in a reverse merger for an approximate cost of $3.9 billion. Does this merger have execution risk? John Marshall Bancorp to purchase in-state peer Eagle Financial Services for $253 million. Finward Bancorp considered 7 different merger partners before accepting F...

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on September 5, 2026. Bond market yields are not just increasing in the U.S. they are increasing all over the western world. France, Italy, UK, and Japan have all seen increasing 10-year treasury yields. The growing global debt of $350 trillion is getting very expensive to service. Inflation, the war with Iran, $40 trillion in national debt, and a new Fed chairman are all wei...

This episode reviewed recent data for bank IPO’s and capital raises, M&A activity, new charter requests, FDIC problem bank list, recent bank failures, the return of shareholder activism, and the impact of rising yields on accumulated other comprehensive income or AOCI. Capital raises through preferred equity (IPOs) picked up in the second quarter of 2026, but subordinated debt and senior debt are still the preferred vehic...