Latest Content

By Adam Mustafa, Invictus Group CEO Community banks that take a “top-down” approach toward stress testing are taking the equivalent of a placebo when it comes to assessing how ready they are if the pandemic triggers a severe and protracted economic downturn.  Placebos are cheap ...
Read More

As the coronavirus financial fallout continues, many community bank executives may soon be dealing with tough safety and soundness exams. That was the situation in 2018 for Middlefield Bank, a $1.3 billion Ohio institution. “We had to meet the FDIC’s demands,” recalled John Lane, EVP ...
Read More

What Community Banks Need to Know about Regulatory Actions Regulators Want Stress Tests to Account for Changing Conditions If your bank isn’t adjusting its stress tests to reflect for the changing COVID-19 environment, expect to come under increased regulatory scrutiny. The Office of the Comptroller ...
Read More

By Adam Mustafa, Invictus Group CEO Regulators have made it clear in recent guidance: As the economic fallout from the coronavirus continues, capital plans will be under the microscope at your next exam. And while most community banks have a capital plan, way too many ...
Read More

As regulatory scrutiny looms, community and regional banks must ensure they have the proper tools to assess the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on their capital, asset quality, earnings, liquidity and more. The one tool that covers all those areas is a stress test designed ...
Read More

By Adam Mustafa and Sonny Capone, Invictus Group Let’s face it: Publicly traded banks that implemented the new current expected credit losses (CECL) accounting standard during the COVID-19 pandemic faced a huge set of challenges. But what really drove their decisions about how much to ...
Read More

By Adam Mustafa, Invictus Group CEO The Federal Reserve announced last week that it was suspending stock repurchases and limiting the amount of dividends the largest banks can pay in the second quarter. The Fed made this decision after the large banks “passed” the DFAST/CCAR ...
Read More

By Leonard J. DeRoma, Invictus Group Director of Liquidity Analytics The last several months of the COVID-19 crisis have heaped an enormous and unexpected level of stress and complexity onto bank CEOs. Managing potentially serious credit problems with clients in various industries, learning to have ...
Read More

CEOs take note: Bank examiners will be looking at how well your management team has assessed risks from the COVID-19 environment, whether and how you have changed your business practices, and if you have addressed these changes in your long-term strategic planning, according to an ...
Read More

As we told you last month, two out of every three community banks chose not to opt into the Community Bank Leverage Ratio. We've updated our numbers as more banks file their Call Reports, but the trend continues. The latest numbers show just 1,709 banks ...
Read More