The U.S. is experiencing a massive demographic shift driven by the aging Baby Boom generation, declining birth rates and shifts in immigration trends. What effect will aging have on the banking outlook? In the season finale of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA economist JP Rothenberg discusses how America’s aging population: Shifts balance sheet management strategies with a surplus of stable deposits by weaker localized loan demand. May increasingly push banks into new markets to drive loan g...
Jul 30, 2025•18 min•Season 8Ep. 40
Alongside the commercial and consumer markets, institutional banking is one of three strategic pillars of $70 billion-asset UMB Bank. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, UMB’s Phil Mason discusses: How institutional banking — which includes capital markets, corporate trust, custody and health savings accounts — fits into the business model of the Kansas City, Missouri-based bank and helps extend its footprint coast-to-coast. Investments in technology to support the growth o...
Jul 25, 2025•23 min•Season 8Ep. 39
What does the future hold for bank risk and compliance professionals? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Krysti Cunningham of Security National Bank in Omaha, Nebraska — and winner of the 2025 Distinguished Service Award for Risk and Compliance — discusses: The technological transformation in risk and compliance at community and midsize banks. How technological change is driving the industry toward specialization. Applications for AI tools and LLMs in risk and compliance —...
Jul 21, 2025•22 min•Season 8Ep. 38
Following the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, hear from ABA experts on how key ABA-supported provisions on tax policy, rural real estate and health savings accounts in the budget reconciliation law will affect banks. Experts also discuss what to expect next in terms of implementation. Resources Click here to download the episode if you can’t see the player above. View a members-only staff analysis...
Jul 10, 2025•21 min•Season 8Ep. 37
ABA’s new online platform to provide members with free access to the Treasury Check Verification System is now live. On a special joint episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast and ABA Fraudcast — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — ABA anti-fraud experts Paul Benda and Hannah Ibberson discuss the platform and how banks can put it to use. Among other topics, Benda and Ibberson discuss: The scale of physical U.S. Treasury checks and why they remained a potential vector for fr...
Jun 26, 2025•12 min•Season 8Ep. 36
Amid tariff-related volatility, how are small and midsize businesses and the banks that serve them faring? On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — John Buran, the president and CEO of Queens-based Flushing Financial discusses how tariff and trade policy-related volatility has compounded commercial client uncertainty based on interest rates over recent months and why uncertainty has slowed loan growth and investment. Howeve...
Jun 18, 2025•12 min•Season 8Ep. 35
Jim Ryan has led Old National Bank through a massive wave of growth — through major mergers and organic growth, the Evansville, Indiana-based bank has reached $70 billion in assets and a footprint that extends from Minnesota to Tennessee. The bank has grown by 250% since Ryan moved into the CEO role in 2019. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — Ryan discusses: The bank’s growing profile, including its new marketing part...
Jun 12, 2025•25 min•Season 8Ep. 34
So-called “First Amendment auditors” have long filmed themselves trying to provoke police and other public officials into stopping them from recording in public settings. Now, some auditors are targeting banks, filming for hours outside bank branches and seeking to goad bank employees into calling law enforcement. The latest episode — presented by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest podcast — features tips from bankers and security professionals on how to handle a First Amendment auditor at a bank l...
Jun 05, 2025•9 min
As independently owned and operated small businesses, fast-food restaurant franchisees have unique business needs. They have mobile and often part-time workforces, complex inventory management and the constant challenge of managing both a small business and being the face of a major brand. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Bix2x — Wendell Bontrager talks about how Sonata Bank is working with this unique market segment. For example, “we can come in at fractio...
May 08, 2025•17 min•Season 8Ep. 32
Government-guaranteed lending requires special expertise and back-office functionality that grows increasingly expensive for smaller banks. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Bix2x — Chris Hurn and Jeremy Gilpin of Community Bankshares, a bank holding company in La Grange, Georgia, discuss how they are tackling that challenge. “To start one of these departments is very expensive for a lot of rural banks and credit unions,” says Gilpin, “It’s very prohibitive ...
May 01, 2025•22 min•Season 8Ep. 32
Quantum computing is an entirely new way of processing information, and it has the power to solve extremely difficult computational problems much more quickly than binary computers. As the technology continues to advance, the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — explores how payments and banking might be affected by the technology. Among other topics, the episode addresses: Applications for quantum computing in liquidity management an...
Apr 24, 2025•23 min•Season 8Ep. 31
The payment by the Federal Reserve of interest on bank reserves may sound like an abstruse matter of economic theory, but these payments are critical to bank operations and the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. In the latest episode — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — ABA’s Jeff Huther discusses why proposals to end or reduce interest on reserves are misguided. Among other things, Huther discusses: Why ending payments could have a destabilizing effect on the financial sector. Why, u...
Apr 17, 2025•11 min•Season 8Ep. 30
ABA’s Washington Summit just wrapped up, and this episode — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — features a main stage conversation with Travis Hill, acting chairman of the FDIC. In this episode, Hill discusses: Revisions to the FDIC’s supervisory appeals process . Transparency in bank merger reviews by regulators. The future of bank capital policy after the Basel III “endgame.” Ethics and operational improvements at the FDIC....
Apr 10, 2025•17 min•Season 8Ep. 29
April is Financial Literacy Month, a time when bankers think creatively about how to engage young people on topics of financial wellness. Citi’s Michelle A. Thornhill and Roads to Success’s Bashan Fernandez for a discussion of Citi’s approach to making financial knowledge fun and engaging. In this episode — sponsored by Intrafi’s Banking with Interest — they discuss several innovative approaches, including: Citi’s financial empowerment workshop for New York City middle schoolers, to be held on T...
Apr 03, 2025•18 min•Season 8Ep. 28
In the wake of this week’s significant executive order directing the Treasury to eliminate the use of paper checks for federal government disbursements (and payments to the U.S. government), ABA’s Steve Kenneally joins the podcast for a conversation on what’s next for the payments system. In this episode — sponsored by nCino — Kenneally discusses: The role of Treasury checks in check fraud schemes. The order’s aggressive timeline, with an implementation date of Sept. 30, 2025. The significant ch...
Mar 27, 2025•12 min•Season 8Ep. 27
Legislators and regulators are strongly focused on policy related to payment stablecoins, most recently with the passage of the Genius Act in the Senate Banking Committee. On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by nCino — ABA’s Brooke Ybarra and Kirsten Sutton discuss the current policy and technology landscape on stablecoins. Among other topics, they talk about: How stablecoins work and why people are interested in this kind of digital asset. Use cases for payment stable...
Mar 20, 2025•19 min•Season 8Ep. 26
The big story of check fraud is not only its vast cost to the country and to individual victims, but simply the remarkable rate at which it is increasing. On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by nCino — we bring you a conversation from the ABA Fraudcast with ABA’s Paul Benda and Caitlin Piasecki of the United States Postal Inspection Service the enormous scale and challenge of addressing mail theft, a common venue for criminals to access paper checks. Piasecki describes...
Mar 13, 2025•30 min•Season 8Ep. 25
A century ago, in March 1925, Charles G. Dawes was sworn in as vice president of the United States. Being elected vice president of the United States — as Dawes was, alongside Calvin Coolidge, in a landslide — is usually a career pinnacle for an American politician, but Dawes’ vice presidency turned out to be more of a footnote in his eventful life. In the second part of this two-part podcast series — presented by nCino — Dawes biographer Annette Dunlap explores Dawes’ service as head of logisti...
Mar 06, 2025•31 min•Season 8Ep. 24
A century ago, in March 1925, Charles G. Dawes was sworn in as vice president of the United States. Being elected vice president of the United States — as Dawes was, alongside Calvin Coolidge, in a landslide — is usually a career pinnacle for an American politician, but Dawes’ vice presidency turned out to be more of a footnote in his eventful life. In the first part of this two-part podcast series — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Dawes biographer Annette Dunlap walks listeners through...
Feb 27, 2025•27 min•Season 8Ep. 23
In rural southeastern New Mexico, bank CEO and varsity bowling coach Ken Clayton often takes his team on 500-mile one-day roundtrips for bowling tournaments. For Clayton, that commitment to going the distance is also what community banking is about. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — Clayton discusses what makes community banks like his tick. And as chair of ABA’s Government Relations Council, he also talks about ABA’s legislative ...
Feb 20, 2025•26 min•Season 8Ep. 22
A recent article in the New York Times — “ Love and Money: Why Sharing Accounts Is Good for Your Relationship ” — explores scholarly evidence for the benefits of couples’ combining their bank accounts. The article features the insights of Indiana University marketing professor Jenny Olson, who appeared in 2023 on the ABA Banking Journal Podcast. For a special Valentine’s Day episode, we bring back that classic podcast episode — sponsored by R&T Deposit Solutions — in which Olson discusses he...
Feb 13, 2025•16 min•Season 8Ep. 21
On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — presented by R&T Deposit Solutions — ABA’s Jeff Huther and Sharon Whitaker rebut a false narrative about how banks are managing commercial real estate credit risk. Expanding on a rebuttal to a New York Fed paper , they explore why measures of distress and undercapitalization used by the New York Fed and some in the media are inconsistent with common definitions and ignore bank-borrower relationships, accounting principles and valuati...
Feb 11, 2025•19 min•Season 8Ep. 20
Today's episode features a crossover from ABA's brand new podcast series: ABA Fraudcast: Cyber and Fraud with Paul Benda. Community banks can be targets of large-scale fraud, just like larger banks. On the inaugural episode of the ABA Fraudcast, former ABA Chair Dan Robb, president and CEO of Jonesburg State Bank in Missouri, describes the recent targeting of his bank by fraudsters who texted thousands of residents of his community, seeking access to customer accounts. What followed for Robb and...
Jan 16, 2025•22 min•Season 8Ep. 19
From AI and crypto to complex regulatory challenges and increasingly diverse markets, bank executives face increasingly complex strategic decisions — and so do bank boards as they set and oversee the strategic direction for their banks. And yet, the average age of bank directors is 76, and many do not have expertise in these critical challenges affecting banks. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, veteran bank board members and executives Jenn Docherty and Virginia Varela di...
Jan 08, 2025•21 min•Season 8Ep. 18
In this holiday bonus episode — sponsored by TransUnion — host Evan Sparks digs into the Banking Journal archives to learn more about the “Christmas Club” savings vehicle, and what this financial product says about human psychology and behavioral economics. This episode is presented by TransUnion .
Dec 20, 2024•7 min•Season 8Ep. 17
“Well, your money’s in Joe’s house, that’s right next to yours. And in the Kennedy House, and Mrs. Macklin’s house, and, and a hundred others. Why, you’re lending them the money to build, and then, they’re going to pay it back to you as best they can.” Seventy-eight years ago, George Bailey memorably explained the operation of a mutual savings and loan to a national audience in It’s a Wonderful Life . But while today’s bankers understand mutuality, do today’s potential clients? On the latest epi...
Dec 18, 2024•21 min•Season 8Ep. 16
The rarely used Congressional Review Act provides an opportunity for Congress and the president to overturn regulatory rulemakings — and the GOP trifecta in 2025 will bring new regulations up for review. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by TransUnion — ABA experts Kirsten Sutton and Ginny O’Neill break down details about CRA that bankers need to know: Which rulemakings are subject to CRA disapproval resolutions — in financial services, principally Section 1033...
Dec 12, 2024•20 min•Season 8Ep. 15
Saved by the bell? Millions of American businesses faced a January 1 deadline to register their beneficial owners with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — until a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction yesterday stopping FinCEN from enforcing the deadline. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by TransUnion — ABA experts Heather Trew and Jonathan Blum discuss: What bankers and their business clients need to know about the preliminary injunction and it...
Dec 04, 2024•22 min•Season 8Ep. 14
Advertising jingles: corny or clever? “Imagine the repetition over years in a community that hears it regularly,” says Clark Hook of Financial Marketing Solutions. “It’s whether you love or hate jingles, you cannot deny the power of that mnemonic device to put attribution to the things you’re putting into the world.” On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — we take a look at bank jingles past and present. Expert bank marketers discuss: How and why com...
Nov 25, 2024•29 min•Season 8Ep. 13
Middle market businesses don’t get the attention of the Fortune 500 or the love that small businesses get from policymakers, but these firms are still critical to the economy — accounting for a third of private-sector GDP and employing up to 50 million Americans. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast — sponsored by Agri-Access — KeyBank commercial bank president Ken Gavrity discusses the outlook for the middle market, defined as businesses with annual revenues of $10 million t...
Nov 20, 2024•17 min•Season 8Ep. 12
