The new AVPs, with the exceptions of KM and the new CFO, have operations/finance backgrounds but lack banking experience. The short term goals are getting back in the good graces of regulators, cutting costs, and taming our out of control operations. I think they will succeed in this. My question is then what? Do they bring in a new Bank CEO, maybe from outside, to try to grow revenue and build a solid Bank that returns money to the enterprise each year? Or are they trying get things under control to make it easier to divest themselves of Bank? I go back and forth with my opinion.
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Very hypothetical. You just revealed by the vendors you named that you know nothing. Cenlar services 1st mortgage and has nothing to do with BMO and is not even similar. Again, no alias are being hidden from you. BMO doesn't even have alias nor do any vendors. You are lost
So, is the axe finally going to hit us in the Bank today?
I have all too many times about the "boy's club" in the exec management ranks. And I have seen it first-hand.
Not only the "boys", but also a snubbing of education from schools NOT in their circle.
I bet State Farm has the least diverse management team of any Fortune 50 company. New bank execs are all white and mostly male. Wish we would follow other banks in looking at pay disparity and leave policies because we are way behind the industry.
BMO is my personal bank. Left SF Bank since it was such an archaic experience. SFCU is somewhat similar. There weren't any modern apps and everything was by paper, snail mail, and fax. Sounds familiar?
True on the lack of concern over real compliance. It is a shell game to hide issues from the regulators. The Bank was under a MOU for several years, which had MS giving regular updates in person to the OTS, then OCC. We were nearly shutdown once after an associate shared a concern with OTS and it revealed that RK lied about changes to credit card program.
If they had found out that ME (glad he is gone) and RK outright lied to the auditors about some other fair lending issues, they would have been shut down on the spot. There is a lot of cloak & dagger, smoke & mirror manure on the farm.
Not really hypothetical. If not BMO then why does everybody get nervous when you ask about that specific team? SF has contracted out to bad vendors before and they seem destined to repeat history (and they do, all the time). And hiding their contact info including alias is no security measure. BS. I’ve seen the backend of plenty (BMO, Cenlar, & can’t even remember the name of the previous contractor they used), and SF doesn’t care about quality in Bank. Just profit. Heck they don’t even care about Compliance or Fair Lending and I could prove it with documentation if I wanted to.
I'm not sure SFB execs are intelligent enough to negotiate a deal like this. They are likely going to find out they didn't use enough lube.
I don't think BMO has the resources to take on an acquisition like SFB.
I believe it will be BofA or Citi. They are large enough to absorb the account volumes wothout needing to take on the overload of FTE.
@wawawa your post is hypothetical nonsense. As someone who sees BMOs back end processes every day I can confidently tell you that they are in no position to aquire anything. They can barely service our products correctly as it is. There are definitely BAs who work closely with BMO, but that's true of every vendor. Especially ECVs. Finally, your comment about outlook is hilarious. They put that in place so that they could monitor SPI data leaving internal servers. It's a security function, and you're actually lucky they put that in place since it warms you before you send out some info that could get you a drop file. Bye!
Yes, the Bank has crappy systems but the Bank wasn’t allowed to choose. For some strange reason, SF insists on putting all its Bank eggs in the FIS / Savanna, basket. Maybe because SF is heavily invested in them (check your 401k investment options).
Bank will be taken over by BMO Harris. They already have a team of over 130 waiting in the wings (and that is just what is fairly commonly known...who knows how many others, and they recently changed Outlook to hide the fact that these ARE BMO employees). They are ALL BMO Harris, but have SF email addresses assigned. A few State Farm BA’s are on the team. Is it contracting out? Every Bank department or just Mortgage? Who knows, but partially explains putting all new Upper Management in place, who have no real experience in the Bank. Also somewhat explains the huge project to revamp BKS (supposedly designed so anybody can walk in off the street and fill a position, if they can follow step by step instructions). They are allowing (encouraging) constant harassment of some employees (have to weed out a few so there are less severance packages to offer). Heck, the first sign was when they REDUCED the severance package. I wonder if they will reduce it again before the Bank layoffs start? Moral is extremely low and from what I see, the supervisors and managers mostly REALLY BELIEVE that they will still have a job as long as they do what they are told. SMH...
Bank never had a chance to grow and flourish. They approached the Agency aspect all wrong and didn't structure the plan to engage agents to sell products. It could have been a way to offset reductions in P&C comp to keep the enterprise more competitive.
They will sell off the Bank soon and refocus on core business.
Internal systems hasn't the expertise to build banking platforms. The needs are extremely complex. Could it be done? Yes. Would any sort of CBA make it feasible? No!
There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. The issue you see with existing platforms that have chosen are that SF has a history of ba$tardizng off the shelf installatiins that they become unstable and cost prohibitive (Peoplesoft anyone?).
The other issues with existing bank technology investments were the people placed in charge of making them. Seriously, KF wouldn't know a solid system investment if it bit him in the a$$. Then you have local bankers that just see bells and whistles and want the biggest, shiniest one in the window.
Then there was the SF investment in that company in ATL that was used on the P&C side of the house. The propped that company up to keep them from going under, forced Bank to use it, then divested and it sank.
As far as regulators go, SF has always had trouble there and has almost been shut down on the lending side multiple times (fair lending practices, pricing inconsistencies, disparate treatment between agents and non-agents, etc, etc).
The only thing that saved them was the shutdown of the OTS and move to the OCC. That distracted the regulators from following through. That, and the 2008 financial meltdown. The government could afford another crisis.
Both of the first two replies are completely false in regards to the systems commebts. The Bank absolutely gets charged a systems allocation, and would love to work with systems but the Bank’s priority is so low compared to P & C it’s impossible to get on the roadmap.
SF Bank want free work from Systems all the time including testing environments. But they are not charged back for it and got people fire both regs and consultants. They could care less if they are behind or not. They paid fines for not doing what the Federal Reserve told them THEY HAD TO DO.
SF will have to go public by 2027 (215 ILCS 5/Art. III heading) I. DOMESTIC MUTUAL COMPANIES (Article scheduled to be repealed on January 1, 2027)
There will be no Mutual Fund companies allowed after 2027 something Ed Rust wanted years ago.
I hate SF Bank. They refuse to work with the rest of Systems and use crappier solutions and vendors.
I considered getting an account with them, but they were pitiful compared to Ally as far as interest rates. They don't let you use Mint to track your account. You can't make an account without at some point having to call a human.
They're just so far behind every other online only bank.