The Banker Next Door

Bank News: PNC, Regions, and Citizens executives don’t want to be distracted by potential M&A deals. PNC could be open to M&A, but current valuations make a deal unlikely. Citizens is open to bolt-on deals if they focus on the payments area. Bank7 is seeking to purchase 100% of Century Financial. Bank charter approvals more than double from 2025. Synapse victims turn to small-claims court as they are still trying to recover funds years later. Enova scraps merger deal with Grasshopper Bank. Nubank launches in the U.S. through a partner without full regulator approval. Truist exists near-prime auto lending business by selling $5.5 billion in loans. Citizens Bank sues SoFi for potentially poaching mortgage employees. Japanese Bank SMBC is recruiting in Charlotte. FDIC’s Travis Hill pushes for faster merger review process. Michelle Bowman outlines three potential changes to stress-test calculations and reviewed a new report on the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. Conference of State Bank Supervisors float AI framework for banks and examiners. This episode reviewed multiple articles from Banking Dive and S&P Global Market Intelligence (subscription required)

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on September 19, 2026. The Clarity Act failed to advance through the Senate on a 50-49 vote. It needed 60 votes to pass. This failure puts this bill in real jeopardy as the midterm elections approach and both houses of Congress have gone on recess. At the same time, the SEC cleared the way for tokenized stock. Was this a smart move on the part of the SEC?

This is part 41 of the crypto series. The Clarity Act failed to advance out of the U.S. Senate. The measure failed on a 50-49 vote. It needed 60 votes to pass. Every democrat and three republicans voted against it. The failure puts the bill in serious jeopardy with the midterm elections coming up in November and the House of Representatives in recess until after the election. Who is to blame? The crypto industry appears to be placing the blame on Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase. There was a strong chance of getting this legislation passed in January of this year, but Armstrong pulled his support for the bill. Armstrong and people on his staff ended up frustrating lawmakers with their constant changes and pushback. Ultimately, political infighting and demands from both the banking lobby and crypto lobby created a perfect stew that sunk this bill. Will it come back in the future? Maybe, but it will probably look very different. This episode reviewed an article from Banking Dive titled “Crypto’s Clarity Act stumbles” and an article from The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) titled “Crypto blew its big moment – and the blame game has begun.”

According to Bank Director’s 2026 Technology Survey, banks are feeling the pressure from increased competition, emerging technology, and changing strategy. Key findings from the report include efficiency over growth, getting educated on artificial intelligence, gauging AI usage, integration challenges, prioritizing payments, and most not sold on crypto. A majority of bank executives view financial technology firms including Block and PayPal as their greatest competitive threats. Only 16% of bank executives see cryptocurrency or stablecoin as a top competitive threat. Perhaps the biggest finding is that 70% of bank executives say their bank does not have a strategy to reach younger accountholders. This episode reviewed Bank Director’s 2026 Technology Survey. A link to the survey is included below.
Link: 2026TechReport-Open-Version.pdf

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on September 12, 2026. Private Credit favorites Blue Owl and Jefferies face new issues. Jefferies is staring down a potential $500 million loss from Radiant World. Blue Owl Capital cut the value of its loans to Loparex to near zero. In addition, the current oil shock is testing Private Credit borrowers with high debt loads. Smaller borrowers are seeing rising defaults. The episode reviewed articles from Reuters, Seeking Alpha, CNBC, and The Business Journals.

The Banker Next Door (BND) weekly live stream show. Strategy Room provides financial news, commentary, top stories in the business world, economic indicators, and all things banking for the week.

Who is Jane Street? They are a mysterious high frequency trading hedge fund on Wall Street that seems to have its hands in everything with some questionable behavior. Jane Street was started in 2000 by three former executives of Susquehanna International Group and an IBM developer. There is no public face to the firm, and they do not like publicity. New hires are discouraged from drawing any attention to themselves or the firm. That means no media and anything that might catch the attention of regulators. Jane Street has grown from a handful of employees to over 3,500 with $45 billion in trading profits so far in 2026. Jane Street has become a major player on Wall Street and when they surface in the news it is usually negative. Whether allegations of insider trading in crypto, having an alum like Sam Bankman Fried, suing rival Millennium Management, or losing $15 billion to situational awareness, this hedge fund gets around. Make no mistake, this hedge fund is here to stay, and they are part of the new bread on Wall Street. This episode reviewed two articles from The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) titled “Secretive Wall Street Powerhouse Jane Street Seizes the AI spotlight” and “Jane Street suffers loss of about $15 billion following troubles at Situational Awareness.”

Italian bank Monte Dei Paschi (BMPS) has had quite the saga over the last two years. BMPS has had CEO issues, multiple potential merger partners, rogue board members, and tons of media! Everything a good banking soap opera needs. When last we left BMPS, Intesa Sanpaolo made an offer to purchase the world’s oldest bank seeking to create the “UBS” of Italy. BMPS responded by attempting to purchase Banco BPM. Intesa Sanpaolo received pushback from Italian regulators and offer to split up BMPS by selling the retail part of the bank to BPER Banca SpA. BMPS has fended off the merger proposal but their bid to purchase Banco BPM was thwarted by their largest shareholder, Credit Agricole. Then BMPS turned around and made joint bids for Banca Generali and Banco BPM. Will BMPS be able to complete these twin mergers? Will they be able to fend off Intesa Sanpaolo? This episode reviewed multiple articles in The Wall Street Journal and S&P Global (subscriptions required).

Security Bank & Trust President Andy Schornack worked with several employees to develop an AI credit workflow solution for processing commercial loans. Andy had investigated several fintech providers and found they had several product solutions, but the costs were prohibitive at five and six figures. These were very high costs for a $1.3 billion community bank to absorb. Andy’s wife, being in the software business, suggested that he try Anthropic’s Claude Cowork. Using Claude, Microsoft Power Platform and SharePoint Andy was able to create an automated workflow solution that was able to replace the current manual process. The cost of this was only a few hundred dollars per month. Andy has worked with his fellow team members to take the workflow through 80 iterations. This is a great example of how AI can work for your bank. This episode reviewed an article from FinXtech titled “How I solved it: Security Bank & Trust uses AI to build credit workflow app.” A link to the article is included below.
Link: How I Solved It: Security Bank & Trust Uses AI To Build Credit Workflow App - FinXTech

Bain & Company recently released a report detailing their outlook on U.S. bank M&A through 2030. Some of the key findings include: 1) there will be at least one bank to cross the $1 trillion assets threshold but could be as high as 2-3 via M&A, 2) There will be continued consolidation for small and larger regional banks, 3) There will be continued consolidation for community banks, 4) Banks should consider under-the-radar options when screening M&A targets, and 5) While scale-and-scope deals are currently outperforming, banks should consider buying fintech challengers. This episode reviewed Bain & Company’s bank M&A report titled “Hidden Gems: How to find the US bank M&A targets everyone else is missing.” A link to the report is included below.
Link: Hidden Gems: How to Find the US Bank M&A Targets Everyone Else Is Missing | Bain & Company