The Banker Next Door

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved plans to further open private markets or alternative assets to individual investors. Many investors are locked out of the best investments such as Hedge Funds, Private Equity, IPOs, private placement memorandums, etc. due to financial qualifications required by the SEC. Under current securities laws an individual must meet the financial criteria of an Accredited Investor. The current financial criteria is a net worth over $1 million (excluding your primary residence) or income over $200k (single) or $300k (married) in each of the prior two years. In 2020, the SEC added additional Professional Criteria, which allowed certain other individuals to qualify. The new proposal is to provide an exam that, if passed, would license individuals as an Accredited Investor. However, buyers beware! After many decades why would the SEC suddenly decide to become this generous? This episode reviewed multiple articles from CNBC and the definition of an Accredited Investor from the SEC website.
Link: SEC.gov | Accredited Investors

Nano Bank in Irvine, California has become the sixth bank failure of 2026! 2026 has now become the year with the largest number of bank failures this decade. The next largest year is 2017 with eight bank failures. In terms of asset size, the combined six bank failures this year account for approximately 1.41 billion is assets, which is minuscule compared to the $552 billion that was lost in 2023 with three of the largest bank failures in U.S. history. Nano Bank was a very troubled bank reporting a loss of $75 million for fiscal year 2025. Nano’s total assets ranged between $690M to $736M. The FDIC is estimating that this failure will cost the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) approximately $114M. Nano had trouble with regulators stretching back to 2020. Nano was under a consent order at one point and was constantly shuffling executives, board members, and investors. In addition, Nano had major credit problems with a large amount of bad loans, which ultimately sunk the bank. Nano follows a very similar pattern with the other five banks that failed in 2026. This episode reviewed an article from Banking Dive and S&P Global (subscription required). A link to the Banking Dive article is included below.  
Link: California’s Nano Banc fails | Banking Dive

This episode is an interview with Old Glory Bank CEO, Mike Ring. Before Mr. Ring became CEO of Old Glory Bank, he worked as an attorney; earning a JD and LLM in taxation. He started his own law firm specializing in corporate and securities law. Mr. Ring is also the founder of multiple other businesses including Haymon Sports and Katz Broadcasting. Mr. Ring is a veteran, having served honorably in the U.S. Air Force. In the interview, Mr. Ring and I cover a number of topics that range from the founding of Old Glory Bank, the type of products offered by the bank, the banks current customer base, and how Old Glory is seeking to expand its products in the near future with crypto and stablecoin offerings. Mr. Ring is very passionate about the ‘debanking’ that has occurred in the banking industry for political reasons in the last few years and seeks to ensure that no customer of Old Glory will ever be treated in that manner. In addition, we touch on the recent issue surrounding the bank’s capital position. Old Glory was scheduled to combine with a special purpose acquisition company and when that fell through the FDIC issued a corrective action stating that the bank was undercapitalized. Mr. Ring announced that Old Glory successfully raised another $8M and is once again adequately capitalized. Furthermore, the bank is extremely excited about their future growth potential. As Mr. Ring states: “We are just getting started!” Included below is a link to Old Glory Bank’s website.   
 Link: Old Glory Bank | Home

What is ‘Effective Altruism’ or EA? Is it a cult, philosophy, or just a bunch of weirdo’s living together at houses in San Fran? Kind of a mix of all three. EA has grown as a ‘philosophy’ over the last 25 years. The problem with this? Many of its acolytes permeate elite academia and Silicon Valley. Namely, OpenAI, Anthropic, the failed FTX, and the almost failed Situational Awareness. The idea behind EA is quantitative analysis to figure out how to maximize the use of money in a way to ‘save the most lives.’ The more lives you save? I don’t know, apparently there is some kind of points system? While EA purports to save the world, the people associated with this movement come off as a bunch of hypocrites that just like lavish vacations and want to be billionaires at all costs. Examples: Sam Bankman Fried and Dario Amodei. The EA subculture has embedded itself in many of the top AI companies and these employees are causing trouble. Should we be concerned with EA acolytes? Yes, we should. This episode reviewed a definition and explanation of ‘Effective Altruism’ from Wikipedia and an article from The Wall Street Journal (Subscription required) titled “Things will never be chill again: The doomers who shaped the AI safety freakout.”

There have been several deals in the last few years featuring fintechs buying banks. Some examples include SoFi purchasing Pacific Bank and Lending Club purchasing Radius Bank. But with the recent announcement of Valley National Bancorp purchasing Bluevine, could the script be about to flip? Could this be the first of multiple transactions involving banks purchasing fintechs? This deal is a game changer and it certainly puts everyone on notice. Banks will need to change their strategy in the years ahead and purchasing a fintech that already has the technology or products that they need is easier than starting from scratch. Conversely, why are banks attractive to fintechs? Multiple reasons that include strong deposit franchise, established lending relationships, sound regulatory and compliance track record, and size and infrastructure. This episode reviewed multiple articles from S&P Global Market Intelligence (subscription required) and a blog post from PCBB titled “Is your CFI on a Fintech’s radar?” A link to the PCBB blog post is included below.
Link: Is Your CFI on a Fintech’s Radar?

This video is a clip from BND: Strategy Room Live Stream on October 4, 2026. The residential real estate market is dealing with a lot of challenges at the moment. Interest rates for a 30-year mortgage are well over 7.00%. This exacerbates the affordability issue. The residential market is also dealing with rising prices and the ‘lock in effect’, where property owners have locked in mortgages rates between 3-4% and do not want to lose those fixed rates. Residential homeowners currently have trillions of dollars in equity, but they will not unlock that equity by selling or taking out home equity loans because of the current interest rates. Furthermore, the FHFA has introduced Vantage score as an alternative credit scoring model that can be used in underwriting residential mortgages through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.   

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.

The industry is currently seeing a few trends in mergers and acquisitions. Recent M&A transactions suggest that quality deposits are in high demand and commanding a market premium. Acquirers are seeking banks with strong low-cost deposit franchises. Additionally, the FDIC is seeking to modernize the bank M&A process by updating competition analysis. The goal is to overhaul part of the process and make it easier for banks to get deals done. Critics say the proposal does not go far enough, and they would like additional competitors added such as online banks, fintechs, and other nonbank providers. Finally, bank acquisitions by credit unions are starting to heat up again with multiple recent transaction announcements. It appears this trend is ready to pick up speed again. This episode reviewed multiple articles from S&P Global Market Intelligence (subscription required) and Bank Director. The article from Bank Director is titled “Why more credit union and bank mergers are on the horizon.” A link to the Bank Director article is included below.
Link: Why More Credit Union and Bank Mergers Are on the Horizon | Bank Director

Has your bank struggling with digital account opening? Perhaps because of persistent fraud issues? First Farmers Bank and Trust (“FFBT”) was not happy with their existing account opening process, which could take up to 45 minutes to complete. They decided to work with a fintech named Prelim. Prelim’s technology was able to work with FFBT’s existing core system Fiserv. After implementing Prelim’s software and turning on the digital account opening the results could not have been better! The time to open an account dropped from 45 minutes to 10 minutes, a 78%-time savings. The number of digital account openings increased 86% through the first half of 2026. A 100% decline in identity fraud was realized. Prelim was able to put forth a solution that solves a major pain point for community banks. This episode reviewed an article from ICBA titled “First Farmers Bank and Trust: An innovative approach to digital account opening.” A link to the article is included below.
Link: First Farmers Bank & Trust - ICBA.org

Bank News: Nano Bank becomes the 6th bank failure of 2026. Valley National Bank to purchase Bluevine for approximately $340M. Peoples Bancorp is cleared by the Fed to complete their purchase of Citizens National Corp and quickly announced their second purchase of 2026 with Capital Bancorp. Gulf Winds credit union makes their second purchase of a bank in the last month with an agreement to buy Alabama’s Peoples Exchange Bank. First National of Nebraska completed their purchase of Blue Ridge Bank and Trust Co. Bank7 is set to complete their purchase of Century Financial. WaFd will go over $50B in asset size with their proposed reverse merger with EverBank Financial Group. Mission Lane received conditional approval from the OCC to form the first credit card bank in over 20 years. Mercury CEO says that pursuing a bank charter is their top priority. Parkway Bancorp closed on $350M private placement and hires new executives. Amerant Bank continues to tackle credit issues. River City Bank and American Savings Bank both had successful IPOs in the last few months, who’s performance may give other banks hope of trying. Michigan credit union CEO is fired over photo. Fed finalized stress-test changes. Fed OIG finds that construction project was mismanaged, but there is no criminality. This episode reviewed multiple articles from Banking Dive and S&P Global Market Intelligence (subscription required).