FMS Financial Managers Society; authored by Bryan Ridgway and Kenneth M. Levey April 19, 2016 For the better part of two decades, financial institutions have watched their net interest...

Finance teams need an accurate and consistent methodology to analyze profitability and performance. Learn more in our article on utilizing funds transfer pricing.

In this guest blog, Daniel Groom, Senior Vice President of Finance, shares his team’s experiences, offering six best practices for a smooth and effective implementation of customer profitability analysis.

In the previous blog we discussed the challenges facing many financial institutions in today’s marketplace, including substantial regulatory requirements, significant competition...

Managing business and financial performance in today’s challenging and constantly evolving financial environment is critical for any bank to achieve its short-term and long-term goals. The ability to manage business and financial performance is directly dependent upon an institution’s understanding of the drivers of that performance and the ability to effectively quantify projected business strategies.

(Part 3 of a 3-part blog series) Preparations for the 2018 budgeting process are underway in financial institutions. Few people relish the experience, which is often characterized by long hours and vast differences between the future financial performance executive stakeholders want and what management can deliver. Aligning strategic plans with tactical plans and associated budgets often does not occur or the linkages among these pieces are weak.

When crunching budget numbers, complex credit unions with several branches and departments might feel like they are searching for a needle in a haystack. Error-prone Excel spreadsheets...

Incentive compensation management (ICM) programs are one of the most critical factors in determining the success of financial institutions. After all, a financial institution is, at its roots, a sales and services organization. Learn more.

Hear Ken Levey's thoughts on the state of profitability analysis and strategies for improvement.

Since the financial crisis, the banking industry as a whole has been reporting record profits for several quarters, at least in terms of dollar figures. Unfortunately more meaningful measures of bank profitability–such as average return on equity, average return on assets, and net interest margin–have remained depressed or stagnant.

There are two words that finance leaders at banks and credit unions should take away from this blog post. You won’t have to remember anything else. I encourage you to read through the narrative and examples, but all you really need to remember are those two words.

DENVER—Westerra Credit Union was not happy about the way it was managing its financial reporting. Spreadsheets for its monthly reports along with a separate budgeting tool just were not...