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By: Joel Pruis What is it we as bankers are trying to accomplish? If you have been in the industry for 20+ years, this question may sound ridiculous! We do what we do! We are bankers! What do you mean define what are we trying to do? But that is the question, what is it we are trying to do? I am going to propose we boil it down to the basic/fundamental element – Banks aggregate money from various sources and redeploy these funds to earn a return for the shareholders. Ultimately, our objective is to generate an appropriate return for the shareholders Getting back to the movie Moneyball, Billy Beane and Peter Brand define the objective of the Oakland A’s for the season in terms of projecting the number of wins that are needed to assure, with all probability, that the team makes the playoffs (this would be similar to the objective of banking to generate an appropriate return for the shareholders). But Peter Brand quickly moves into very specific targets that are required for the A’s to make it to the playoffs, namely win 99 regular season games. In order to win 99 regular season games, the A’s offense will need to score 814 runs in the season and defensively only allow 645 runs. Plain and simple. Very objective, very measurable and it is all based upon data, data, data. Let’s break this down. Based upon their conference, the teams in their conference along with the overall schedule, Peter Brand projects that 99 wins are necessary to land a spot in the playoffs. No gut check, no darts or crystal ball but rather historical data that when analyzed provides the benchmark of 99 wins to statistically assure the Oakland A’s that they will make the playoffs. So let’s apply this to banking. Our objective is to generate the appropriate return for our shareholders or the old Return on Equity. So, for example, if our targeted return on equity is 20% (making the playoffs) we need to make sure we generate enough net income (99 wins) through producing the necessary gross yield on assets (814 runs generated by the Oakland A’s offense) less the expected charge offs (645 runs allowed by the Oakland A’s defense). For a quick dive into details, our data would provide for a margin of error on the variable to provide for statistical assurance of achieving the objective (Return on Equity). In the movie there is no guaranty that the 814 runs will win the conference but at the same time there is no guaranty that the Oakland A’s opponents will score 645 runs. Never in the movie does the coach, Billy Beane or Peter Brand tell the team, “You only have to score X number of runs this game, don’t score anymore.” Or even crazier, “You are not letting the other team score enough runs, they need to score 645!” No, the strategy is still to generate as many runs as possible while minimizing the number of runs scored by the opposition. Rather it is the review of the total amount of earning assets of the financial institution and the overall credit quality that we must understand and control to determine our ability to generate the net yield on assets required to generate the return on equity that is required. If we assume too much risk in the portfolio in order to generate the required yield it would be similar to having a poor pitching staff projected to allow 10 runs a game requiring the team to produce 11 runs a game in order to win. It just is not realistic. So basically we need to assess at the high level, are we appropriately structured to allow for the generation of enough profit to provide the appropriate return on equity. At this point, we do not need to complicate it any further than that. Now let’s take a look at the constraints. We know we have them in banking, let’s take a look at probably the single biggest constraint imposed on Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s. In the movie, before Billy Beane is even aware of the Moneyball concept, his is given his constraint by the owner. Beane asks for more money to ‘buy players’ and is flat out rejected by the owner. The owner, in fact, cuts Beane off by asking, “is there anything else I can do for you?”. Net result is that the Oakland A’s have $38 million dollars for payroll vs. the New York Yankees at $120 million. Seriously it does not seem fair. How can you attract the needed talent when you cannot pay the type of salary needed to get the necessary players to win a championship? Let’s rephrases this for banking… How can a bank be expected to deploy its assets when such a high rate of return is required? Boiling it down to a specific example, “How can I originate a commercial loan at this rate of interest when the competition is ½ to 1% lower than our rates?” Up next – Why will 99 games get us to the playoffs? How do we assess the environment?

A recent study comparing financial differences between men and women found that, overall, women are better at managing money and debt. Differences between the two populations include: Men have 4.3 percent more debt than women Men have a 2 percent higher credit utilization amount Mortgage loan amounts for men are 4.9 percent higher Men have a higher incidence of late mortgage payments by 7 percent Read more details from the analysis — including an infographic and statistics by city and state. Source: Women Flexing Their Financial Muscles; Women's Credit is in Better Shape Than Men's Credit

By: Joel Pruis Times are definitely different in the banking world today. Regulations, competition from other areas, specialized lenders, different lending methods resulting in the competitive landscape we have today. One area that is significantly different today, and for the better, is the availability of data. Data from our core accounting systems, data from our loan origination systems, data from the credit bureaus for consumer and for business. You name it, there is likely a data source that at least touches on the area if not provides full coverage. But what are we doing with all this data? How are we using it to improve our business model in the banking environment? Does it even factor into the equation when we are making tactical or strategic decisions affecting our business? Unfortunately, I see too often where business decisions are being made based upon anecdotal evidence and not considering the actual data. Let’s take, for example, Major League Baseball. How much statistics have been gathered on baseball? I remember as a boy keeping the stats while attending a Detroit Tigers game, writing down the line up, what happened when each player was up to bat, strikes, balls, hits, outs, etc. A lot of stats but were they the right stats? How did these stats correlate to whether the team won or lost, does the performance in one game translate into predictable performance of an entire season for a player or a team? Obviously one game does not determine an entire season but how often do we reference a single event as the basis for a strategic decision? How often do we make decisions based upon traditional methods without questioning why? Do we even reference traditional stats when making strategic decisions? Or do we make decisions based upon other factors as the scouts of the Oakland A’s were doing in the movie Moneyball? In one scene of the Movie, Billy Beane, general manager of the A’s, is asking his team of scouts to define the problem they are trying to solve. The responses are all very subjective in nature and only correlate to how to replace “talented” players that were lost due to contract negotiations, etc. Nowhere in this scene do any of the scouts provide any true stats for who they want to pursue to replace the players they just lost. Everything that the scouts are talking about relates to singular assessments of traits that have not been demonstrated to correlate to a team making the playoffs let alone win a single game. The scouts with all of their experience focus on the player’s swing, ability to throw, running speed, etc. At one point the scouts even talk about the appearance of the player’s girlfriends! But what if we changed how we looked at the sport of baseball? What if we modified the stats used to compile a team; determine how much to pay for an individual player? The movie Moneyball highlights this assessment of the conventional stats and their impact or correlation to a team actually winning games and more importantly the overall regular season. Bill James is given the credit in the movie for developing the methodology ultimately used by the Oakland A’s in the movie. This methodology is also referred to as Sabermetrics. In another scene, Peter Brand, explains how baseball is stuck in the old style of thinking. The traditional perspective is to buy ‘players’. In viewing baseball as buying players, the traditional baseball industry has created a model/profile of what is a successful or valuable player. Buy the right talent and then hopefully the team will win. Instead, Brand changes the buy from players to buying wins. Buying wins which require buying runs, in other words, buy enough average runs per game and you should outscore your opponent and win enough games to win your conference. But why does that mean we would have to change the way that we look at the individual players? Doesn’t a high batting average have some correlation to the number of runs scored? Don’t RBI’s (runs batted in) have some level of correlation to runs? I’m sure there is some correlation but as you start to look at the entire team or development of the line up for any give game, do these stats/metrics have the best correlation to lead to greater predictability of a win or more specifically the predictability of a winning season? Similarly, regardless of how we as bankers have made strategic decisions in the past, it is clear that we have to first figure out what it is exactly we are trying to solve, what we are trying to accomplish. We have the buzz words, the traditional responses, the non-specific high level descriptions that ultimately leave us with no specific direction. Ultimately it allows us to just continue the business as usual approach and hope for the best. In the next few upcoming blogs, we will continue to use the movie Moneyball as the back drop for how we need to stir things up, identify exactly what it is we are trying to solve and figure out how to best approach the solution.
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