As many of you have guessed, I am an active Rotarian. I really enjoy what I do with Rotary. Almost every banker had to be in a service club not that many years ago. You were expected to show up at all the meetings and go to all the projects wearing a bank shirt. You were also expected to go play golf with customers at least twice a week. (You can substitute tennis, hunting, fishing or what ever for different types of bankers in the different parts of the country.) Do banks just not care anymore? Has the great heartless corporate beast taken over American banking?

Don’t get me wrong, there is a real crisis in American charities with fewer people to help at charities and fewer people to help with fund raising. It is not as noticeable at the national level since state wide and national charities can now hire one of the many fund raising firms which will do the fundraising for them. Or they can promote a celebrity to headline the fundraising. Local charities are really starting to feel the pinch. Even here in West Texas where most companies and their workers are flush up with money, local charities are shutting their doors or cutting back services at a record pace.

I have heard that this new generation of banker cares less for their customers or their community. I will tell you that they care just as much as other generations. They have less time to work for the community because they no longer have an administrative assistant who can do the majority of the paperwork for loans (or new accounts) due to ever increasing regulatory compliance and examiner pressure on paperwork for every loan or account. In the name of stopping terrorists and discrimination and in order to “make transactions more transparent”, we give everybody who walks in the door a ream of paper, which they don’t have time to read and need at least two years of law school to understand. (I dare you to read every document you give to a loan customer and call me to tell me you understand every single sentence in every document.) Consumers complain that banks are trying to make transactions more difficult to understand, but in reality, virtually every document we give them are required by a regulator or used to satisfy a regulator.

So back to my original premise, we are having to spend more time in our office and more time in training in order to satisfy regulators. We could say that Obama was against our local charities, but that would be inaccurate. Regulators are so excited with their new found power that they are overwhelming bankers (and their customers as a result). And just think that the new regulations associated with the Dodd Frank Act have not really started yet, not to mention Basil III! It is only going to get better! Local charities (and old bankers) beware.

If you have a comment, let me know. You can comment at www.thebankersbroker.com or you can call or e-mail me. That is John Scott at (432) 268-3056 or John@thebankersbroker.com. I would love to hear from you. If I can help you with training an associate or marketing your bank or helping you buy a bank call me. I am here to help you!