By Joe Davidson, Senior Vice President
Supervision and Regulation
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
A panel from last year's Banking Outlook Conference, hosted by the Atlanta Fed's Supervision and Regulation Division
Greetings, and I hope your 2025 is off to a fruitful start. We are in the home stretch of preparing for our annual Banking Outlook Conference and hope you will join us. This signature event, hosted at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta on February 27, brings together bankers, supervisors, and other industry participants to discuss emerging risks, salient issues, and factors affecting banking conditions. The theme of this year's conference is "Riding the Next Wave." We've had several waves to navigate over the last few years, including rapid changes in inflation and the rate environment, an influx of innovation and fintech partnerships, and shifts in bank balance sheets. We plan to cover all these topics, and more, with experts and thought leaders from both banking and regulatory organizations. We will also be discussing economic outlooks and supervisory priorities for 2025. Our conference will be offered in-person and virtually. Please email us at bankingoutlookconference@atl.frb.org to learn more. Grab your boards and hang ten for a full day of navigating the banking waters and regulatory waves!
Our S&R leadership participated in a couple of interesting and thought-provoking outreach events in fourth quarter of 2024. In October, we attended the 2024 Community Banking Research Conference, which was sponsored by the Federal Reserve System, the Conference of State Banking Supervisors (CSBS), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and hosted by our friends at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in their beautiful Gateway Auditorium. This is an excellent conference that brought together community banking executives, academics, policy makers, and bank regulators to discuss the latest research on community banking. The 2024 conference covered topics including deposit stability and consumer protection. Academics presented their research, and banker discussants provided reactions based on their "boots on the ground" interactions and experiences. Below is a photo from the panel discussing the CSBS's Annual Survey of Community Banks: Key Findings.
One of my favorite sessions is the one featuring the winning panel from the CSBS Community Banking Case Study competition. College teams participate each year and learn to analyze bank call reports and financials, interview bank management, and produce a well-written research paper detailing their findings and recommendations from the bank they partnered with. The winning 2024 case study focused on lessons learned from the 2023 large bank closures, identifying insights and expectations from their partner bank management teams for the supervisory and regulatory environment and discussing how these banks are strategizing and using social media to support their efforts. Congratulations to Southeastern Louisiana University from Hammond, Louisiana—in our district, I'm proud to say—who interviewed b1Bank in Baton Rouge and placed in the top three! I was pretty impressed with the team's assessment of asset liability management and interest rate risk. What a great honor and introduction to the complexities of the banking industry. You can read summaries of the top three papers here.
Many case study participants alumni have moved on to promising and successful careers as bankers and regulators. Our future is bright with rigorous and experiential programs like these, which introduce college students to our thriving industry and provide real world experience.
I encourage you to visit www.communitybanking.org to learn more about the 2025 conference, scheduled for October 7th-8th, and listen to recordings from previous sessions. For our Sixth District bankers, talk to your universities, alumni groups, or be a host bank partner for the next case study team. Contact us if you are interested in learning more about the 2025 conference.
Another highlight from the fourth quarter of 2024 was Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic's visit to Meridian, Mississippi, where he engaged with local community businesses, and nonprofit leaders to understand the local economy, education, and workforce issues better. You can read about some of his experiences in these articles: Meridian Forges Its Future while Remaining Mindful of Its Past and Atlanta Fed President Visits Meridian to View Progress, Understand Challenges. One other important aspect of President Bostic's visit was a roundtable with Mississippi bankers. Bankers discussed important national and local issues such as impacts from the rate environment and encouraging lending in low and moderate income areas. These roundtables are excellent venues for banker engagement. They provide real-time feedback of the regulatory environment, local economic impacts, banking conditions, and the distinct local flavors of local economies, whether they involve manufacturing, agriculture, or services. Such feedback helps shape our president's views as he prepares for FOMC meetings and our banking supervisory processes. Here is a great picture of our head of community and regional supervision, Allen Stanley (center), flanked by two bankers, Duane Dewey and Casey Hill.
Please accept my wishes for a prosperous 2025, and I hope that you will join us on February 27 for Banking Outlook Conference: Riding the Next Wave.
Yours sincerely,
Joe Davidson
Senior Vice President, Supervision and Regulation
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta