On February 12, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed article on the unlikely alignment of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the issue of more regulations demanded by Dodd-Frank. Warren is obviously an advocate for more oversight and regulations. But why would Blankfein, a leader of one of Wall Street’s biggest banks, warm up to the idea of more regulations? It’s because he realizes additional regulations are additional hurdles for smaller competitors to overcome.
Now that’s might work for Goldman Sachs and other megabanks, but for everyone else in banking, resources are limited. How can community based financial institutions grow, increase their profitability, and devote more energy to innovation when they are preoccupied with a mountain of regulations and compliance issues. How do you achieve growth amid all these distractions? It is more than a product play, more than marketing, more than a sales culture and more training. Sustainable growth can only be achieved if your approach is STRATEGIC and incorporates all of the above, and a blend of everything that follows: