Insight Views

The New York Fed (they are on a great roll lately with their research!) just released a really interesting piece called “Economic Capital: A Better Measure of Bank Failure?” ( https://lnkd.in/dCNeSKWf ) and I think it speaks to something many of us in risk management have been talking about for years. The researchers built a solvency metric called Economic Capital (EC) which is basically the present value of a bank’s assets minus the present value of its liabilities and opera

Model risk management isn’t one-size-fits-all. On October 6, 2025, the OCC issued Bulletin 2025-26 ( https://lnkd.in/diiunKRc ), reminding community banks that model risk practices, including how often models are validated, should be right-sized to an institution’s complexity, resources, and risk profile. I was glad to see the OCC explicitly say it does not expect every model to be validated every year. I’ve long believed that a thoughtful, risk-based approach beats a blanket

The FDIC published its quarterly banking profile for Q1 2025 yesterday. While the report looks "solid" on the surface, once you dive in a bit, the data is not as encouraging.. The banking industry turned in a “good quarter” by the numbers: Earnings up ROA at 1.16% Deposit growth continues Only one bank failed …but if you’ve spent time around balance sheets and risk models, you know that headlines can be deceiving. Earnings: up, but ..... Q1’s profit boost came mostly from non

I’ve always been intrigued by crypto and the blockchain. But mostly from a distance as I'm pretty risk averse on the personal investing side and it hasn't really crept into, or impacted, my day job working with community banks and credit unions on model risk. Until now. 🪙 Stablecoins are starting to go mainstream and they’ve officially got my attention. If you’re not familiar, stablecoins are a type of digital currency designed to stay pegged to a stable asset - usually the

The OCC just released its Spring 2025 Semiannual Risk Perspective and, for community banks, it mostly backed up what we already know. 🏢...