Independent Banker - May 2019 - 53

Communication with staff
One outcome of the impending CECL standard
is an increase in communication between the
finance hub and key business lines, such as
lending officers and risk managers, according to
71 percent of CFO respondents to our survey.
First Northern Bank of Wyoming put
together a work group to find a CECL solution
with representatives from loan processing,
underwriting and operations. " We were educating
different departments on why we have to do this
and get the consistency to ensure the data went
into the core warehouse, " says CFO Nick Thom,
adding that the bank had been collecting data, but
most wasn't in the core system.
Quentin Leighty, CFO of First National Bank,
has an advantage when talking to lenders about
pricing and why the bank operates the way it does:
He is also a lender. " I had a board member asking,
'Why won't you offer a 25-year, fixed-rate loan at a
low rate?' I talked about cash flow, amortization,
different market and how it affects the value of
loans if we get into a liquidity crunch, " he says.
Bank of Bird-in-Hand is among the
Photo: Martin Barraud/iStock
29 percent of banks that haven't seen a change.
or quarter,' and more, 'How do we translate this and move
to the next level?' " he says.
At Bank of Bird-in-Hand in Lancaster County, Pa., the
first de novo bank formed after the financial crisis, Jennifer
Halligan, CFO and vice president, is also finding that her
role has grown more strategic. It has been moving away
from policymaking and has become more forward-looking,
especially as board members who are new to the industry
have gotten up to speed.
" Regulators were intense when we started, because we
were the first [de novo] bank and the FDIC wanted to make
sure [we] got it right. It was more dotting i's and crossing
t's, " Halligan recalls of the bank's founding in 2013. " Now
it's more strategic: where we're going, what we're doing,
how big we want to be and where rates are going. "
The CFO and the C-suite
The C-suite response to increasingly complex accounting
and capital standards has varied from bank to bank,
according to CFO respondents, with a third saying senior
management is much more inquisitive, 29 percent
reporting they are slightly more inquisitive and 34 percent
reporting no change.
Standard says that his 20 years of community bank CFO
experience, combined with the small size of First State
" Communication was pretty good to begin with, "
says Jennifer Halligan, CFO and vice president.
" We don't have any losses or any loans past due,
so in some ways, some of this stuff is not going to
have a big effect on us. "
How have CECL and other highprofile
accounting standards changed
communications between your finance hub
and key business lines, like lending officers
and risk-management professionals?
28.93%
No change in
communications across
working teams
0%
Communications
have slightly
decreased
0%
Communications
have decreased
substantially
57.02%
Communications
have increased
somewhat
14.05%
Communications
have increased
substantially
independentbanker.org Q 53
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Independent Banker - May 2019

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