Features Banking

What is your “core why?” Nichoel Casey adopted this guiding question and principle from motivational speaker Simon Sinek, using it regularly in her work at Willamette Valley Bank, member FDIC. Her “core why?” Successfully leading a business with an integrated risk management approach, she says. That is: Financial institutions should explore integrating the responsibilities of […]

Time was when Emilia Mesquita envisioned a diplomatic career and saw a law degree as the portal. The more experience she gained, however, the less she perceived diplomacy as the most effective way of fashioning societal, much less global, change. “I realized I could accomplish more in law than in diplomacy,” she tells Vanguard in […]

Shuttered hotels and darkened restaurants and pubs are no way to celebrate a tourist season, but all are a grim reality as Mexico and the greater world works through the COVID-19 pandemic. Banco Sabadell is not alone in working with borrowers who have been devastated by the imminent collapse of tourism or other industries, but […]

His forecast calling for a wave of litigation later this year, Neil Rosolinsky is seeing early the mounting ripples of class-action lawsuits against banks. He remembers how banks bore so much blame for the previous economic crisis, though the Great Recession may pale in comparison with the strife being brought on by COVID-19. This spring, […]

Like most banks, BAC Credomatic Panama began as a traditional financial institution, with many transactions being done in-person and on-paper. While it had already begun a digital transformation, that shift has picked up speed during the COVID-19 crisis. According to vice president of legal operations Normandy Gomez, the bank has continued offering its services. Although […]

These are things that should be learned early, says Linda Ellis. Opening a savings or checking account, building credit and understanding a credit report, and borrowing money—all are essential lessons that should be taught as early as middle school, long before any financial decisions students make as young adults. “It was something that was greatly […]

Lance Morrison compares the legal function at a financial institution to that of a duck gliding across a smooth pond. It may look pristine and calm from a distance, but beneath the surface those legs are constantly kicking as they work to keep things moving. This is particularly true at Civista Bank, where Morrison is […]

It is a burgeoning industry bringing in billions of dollars in revenue across the U.S. and spurring technological advances in agriculture as its crops are found in edibles, beverages, oils and the traditional plant form. And yet, offering bank accounts and loans to businesses involved in marijuana cultivation and sales is completely off-limits for banks—because […]

What do Oprah Winfrey and North Dakota’s Bell Bank have in common? That would be Bell Bank’s charitable Pay It Forward program, inspired by the TV icon 16 years ago. Since its inception in 2008, more than $15 million in charitable donations have been given by the Fargo financial institution, making headlines in the process […]

General counsel and vice president of BMO Harris Financial Advisors since October 2015, Amanda Demas recalls how with a previous firm she witnessed an aggressive middle-aged son bringing his very elderly mother into an office and practically strong-arming her into restructuring her portfolio to his favor. “Prior to then, his mother was always on top […]