Raddon Report

At the end of this year’s Raddon Conference, I had the unenviable task of synthesizing into a single digestible package all that we presented and shared over the three days. The following is my attempt to summarize this amazing event.

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By now, you’ve likely heard discussion of a possible oncoming economic recession. The talk of an inverted yield curve and its predictive ability regarding recessions has been bandied about in the financial as well as the mainstream press.

Is a recession likely? The answer is an unqualified yes. But then again, the answer to that question is always yes. The real question is when it will come. And a related question is how severe it will be.

Each year, Raddon brings together many of the industry’s top leaders and visionaries to our invitation-only CEO Forum. This year’s event took place earlier this month in Dana Point, California, with more than 75 executives collaborating for two days of engaging and interactive discussions with their peers. Join us as we reflect back on some of the key takeaways from the 2019 Raddon CEO Forum.

We recently wrote about how to grow deposits.  Just as important as deposit growth is deposit retention. You can grow at a rapid pace, but if all of your deposits are walking out the door, you obviously won’t be growing.

One of the most confounding developments in retail banking is the impact of technology on the branch channel. Perhaps the latest and clearest example of the industry’s try-anything approach to branching in today’s mobile world is Capital One’s newest concept: the Capital One Café.

Raddon recently hit the road for a series of workshops with participants in our Performance Analytics program. We hosted sessions in 17 cities east of the Mississippi, meeting with over 500 financial services executives along the way. (Note: We’ll be visiting the western half of the country in June; registration is now open for those sessions.)

Every year, Raddon conducts nationwide research of consumers and small businesses to understand their motivations, preferences and behaviors in banking. We include our discoveries in four comprehensive reports: Deposit Insights, Lending Insights, Payments and Channels Insights and Small Business Insights. Subscribers to the Raddon Research Insights program receive these four studies as well as an invitation to a webinar giving highlights and strategic recommendations.

2018 was a good year for the economy generally and for the financial services industry.  We experienced reasonably good GDP growth, especially in the second and third quarters, and we spent the entire year at an unemployment rate of 4% or lower.  In the financial services sector, loan growth continued at a strong pace, to the point that many financial institutions are facing liquidity concerns and for the first time in over a decade are engaged in deposit wars.  Earnings also improved for the majority of financial institutions, a result of improving net interest margins helped by four rate