Banking & Finance  February 19, 2020

Competition for customers, talent fierce in Boulder Valley banking biz

BOULDER — In this ultra-low unemployment and interest-rate environment, competition for both workers and clients is ferocious in the Boulder Valley’s banking sector. 

Industry leaders gathered Tuesday at the offices of Berg Hill Greenleaf & Ruscitti LLP in Boulder for BizWest’s CEO Roundtable to discuss the local economic outlook, hiring and retention, cybersecurity, consumer confidence and other issues on the minds of bankers.

 

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Labor

Like virtually all industries, banks are grappling with the reality of local unemployment rates that continue to hover around 2 percent. That means that identifying, recruiting and retaining top-level talent is becoming increasingly both challenging and critical for banks’ success. 

This hyper-competitive climate has fostered a set of circumstances that more and more frequently results in workers bouncing from employer to employer.

“We can continue stealing from each other, but that’s not going to make the banking environment more robust, First National Bank senior vice president Gretchen Wahl said. To continue to thrive, the industry must “build the next generation of bankers.”

Part of that process involves strengthening ties with local schools and institutions of higher learning to ensure that workers have the proper training, skill sets and desire to join the industry, bankers said. 

“I think there’s an opportunity here for us as an industry to start looking at ways to improve our partnerships with [the University of Colorado] and other local business schools,” Flatirons Bank president Kyle Heckman said. This can be particularly important for smaller, local banks that often do not have the same resources to develop in-house leadership-training programs as the bigger players.

Tamara Byrd, Bank of Colorado’s Longmont branch president, pointed to CareerWise Colorado, a local organization that provides young people with apprenticeship opportunities and career training, as another source of talent, particularly for entry-level positions such as tellers. 

As a result of the public-relations hit the industry took during the Great Recession, banks need to take a more active role in advocating for their industry.

Alpine Bank regional president Chris Maughan suggested that banks update and modernize job descriptions to attract younger workers for whom the industry “still has a little bit of negative stigma.”

 

A slowdown ahead? Perhaps, but consumers remain confident

While the job market remains tight, other economic indicators suggest that the nation’s blazing hot economy could soon begin cooling. 

“What’s keeping the economy afloat are services and consumer spending,” KeyBank vice president and senior national business development officer Pietro Simonetti said. Meanwhile, the manufacturing, transportation and real estate sectors are showing signs of softening.

Anxiety over tariffs and the coronavirus aren’t helping matters, he said. 

Despite strong consumer spending, traditional brick-and-mortar retail projects remain a risky play for developers and bankers, in part due to the popularity of online shopping. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen a pure retail play in years,” First Western Trust Bank’s Broomfield market president Bonifacio Sandoval said. “It’s all mixed-use now and often has a residential component.”

An abundance of potentially toxic subprime loans — including automotive and consumer loans — also looms menacingly, according to BBVA corporate banking manager Luis Ramirez. He said some lenders are “just handing out money,” potentially foreshadowing problems down the line.

The cost, both in terms of materials and labor, of building homes is also putting pressure on the economy. 

“There’s still a supply deficit of housing,” said Elevations Credit Union CEO Gerry Agnes, despite a decade of recovery since the housing collapse in 2008.

 

Branching out?

Bankers take differing views on the traditional bank branch.

“People don’t really come in to deposit checks or withdraw money,” Simonetti said.

KeyBank has led the charge locally toward tellerless bank branches, which have become popular with customers, he said.

“I think they like it because if people just need to do a quick transaction; they don’t have to wait,” he said.

Still, banks see branches as a key way of maintaining personal relationships with customers. 

“We still think it’s a people business,” Maughan said, adding that banks can maintain bottom lines by focusing on deposit-growth strategies rather than cost-cutting.

Local banks are expanding their network of branches within and beyond the Boulder Valley and into other parts of the state and region.

“In order to stay independent and stay private, we have to grow,” Maughan said. “We look for places where we can add value to the community.”

Growth also helps local banks compete with national institutions that tend to take over loan activity when local companies and property owners are bought out by larger investors.

“Ten years ago, you started seeing national money coming into Boulder much more often,” Wahl said “That has really changed the dynamic of the environment here.”

 

Fighting fraud

Technological advances can cut both ways, making banking not only more efficient but also exposing customers and banks to new kinds of threats. 

“One wrong keystroke, and all trust goes out the door,” Agnes said of banks losing the confidence of customers who fall victim to cyber fraud. “There are smart and skilled people who are working for the wrong goal, and that goal is theft.”

As online thieves and hackers become more sophisticated, bankers must be more vigilant. “The more we educate, the better off we all are,” Heckman said.

BOULDER — In this ultra-low unemployment and interest-rate environment, competition for both workers and clients is ferocious in the Boulder Valley’s banking sector. 

Industry leaders gathered Tuesday at the offices of Berg Hill Greenleaf & Ruscitti LLP in Boulder for BizWest’s CEO Roundtable to discuss the local economic outlook, hiring and retention, cybersecurity, consumer confidence and other issues on the minds of bankers.

 

Labor

Like virtually all industries, banks are grappling with the reality of local unemployment rates that continue to hover around 2 percent. That means that identifying, recruiting and retaining top-level talent is becoming increasingly…

Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood is editor and publisher of BizWest, a regional business journal covering Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. Wood co-founded the Northern Colorado Business Report in 1995 and served as publisher of the Boulder County Business Report until the two publications were merged to form BizWest in 2014. From 1990 to 1995, Wood served as reporter and managing editor of the Denver Business Journal. He is a Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder. He has won numerous awards from the Colorado Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.
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