Benjamin Franklin said, “Change is the only constant in life. One’s ability to adapt to those changes will determine your success in life.” The same advice applies to banks.
Bankers today are experienced in adapting to change. Bankers are called upon to adapt to two change types: slow and rapid. The slow change permits bankers the opportunity to study, plan, forecast, train, recruit, contract and adopt new policies. Adapting to rapid change demands all the responses required for adapting to slow changes without the time to comfortably complete all the required steps.
Historically, rapid change events such as the Dot Com crisis, the great financial crisis, and the pandemic tended to happen infrequently. Rapid change events place great demands on management teams already task-saturated with adapting to slow change requirements.
The pace and diversification of rapid change events has accelerated since the pandemic. Bankers now routinely face rapid change events across regulatory, economic, social, workforce, political and demographic environments.
In the last three years we have experienced vast swings in fundamental business drivers. Consumer compliance requirements moved away from and now back toward established regulations and norms. Excess liquidity and zero-bound interest rates nearly overnight transformed into deposit scarcity and a steep yield curve complicating balance sheet management. The workforce participation rates and employee expectations have fundamentally changed. Society is changing how it accesses financial services. Technology is reshaping the very nature of how value flows through the economy. The closely divided electorate increasingly drives a fluid regulatory environment.
Adapting to rapid change is particularly challenging for banks because the banking business model is based upon making long-term financial decisions with and for our customers, shareholders, employees and communities. Rapid change substantially complicates risk management. Despite these multiple challenges, members continue to adapt and thrive.
The West Virginia Bankers Association recognizes and applauds our members’ resilience, imagination and hard work essential to adapting to rapid change. The Association also recognizes that it must adapt its services to ensure that it serves as a useful and relevant partner in our members’ success.
The Association continues to focus on its core mission to provide education, advocacy and leadership. While our core mission will not change, we must change how we deliver on our mission to keep pace with the challenges our members face.
The Association’s education services provide robust courses covering nearly every aspect of bank operation. Our education services are primarily focused on helping bankers evaluate strategy and train staff to implement sound strategies. Increasingly, we are evaluating and implementing education services that also focus on leadership development, understanding emerging issues, and creating environments for bankers to share ideas to speed successful adaptation across the industry.
The Association has renewed and reimagined its role in pursuing advocacy on our members’ behalf on the state and federal levels. We continue to pursue vigorous and strategic advocacy. Also, we are developing systems and resources to better inform and involve our banks and bank employees in political engagement. Our goal is to make political engagement a rewarding experience for bankers and their institutions.
The Association and the West Virginia banking industry have thrived in significant part due to generations of leadership devoted to ensuring a robust and diverse banking system in our state. Bankers continue to step up to foster collective efforts to protect the industry they passionately support. The Association will be enhancing its support for leadership committees within the Association devoted to improving the banking environment in West Virginia.
The Association’s members are tasked with adapting to rapid change. The Association is committed to adapting as well. By harnessing the industry’s collective resources, we can ease individual bank burdens and strengthen our industry.
