Inlanta Mortgage was thrilled to be represented by our own Third Party Originations Manager, Dave Stephan, and our Account Executive, Aaron Kaczorowski, at this year’s Wisconsin Bankers Association Bank Executives Conference on Feb. 6-8th.
While we had a great time networking with fellow professionals, promoting Inlanta, and handing out Starbucks gift cards, we also had the privilege to learn more about our banking community.
We asked Dave to elaborate more on the conference and his insights are below.
“The WBA Bank Executive Conference wrapped up a few weeks back and as a first time attendee with Inlanta Mortgage, I couldn’t help but be struck by the vibrancy and overall participation by our banks in Wisconsin. In my position managing Inlanta’s third party originations channel, we work exclusively with chartered financial institutions and throughout my career, I have worked closely with the states community banks. During that time, I have developed a strong admiration and respect for the role they play in our cities and towns across Wisconsin.
I thought it would be worthwhile to know what the average asset size was of the conference participants, and a brief rundown showed that it was approximately $366 million. That led me to look up just what is a community bank? The Fed defines it as a bank with less than $10 billion in assets which by any yardstick seems a trifle high. Frankly, it’s difficult to imagine walking into my friendly, community, $10 billion bank. Other definitions cap assets at $1 billion and also talk about the deep ties these banks have to their surrounding communities and the people that live there – much more accurate in my opinion.
Of the 227 banks in Wisconsin, only about 25% are above that $366 million asset level and yet hold 75% of the total statewide assets. That leaves the other 75% holding the remaining 25% of total statewide assets. Indeed, the overall average size of our banks is $460 million, and if you take off just the top 3 that number drops to about $255 million. Clearly, we are a community bank state.
When I started in this business fresh out of college (for a bank that no longer exists), there were about 575 banks chartered in Wisconsin. I’ll let you, dear reader, figure out that approximate date, but historically it was not too long ago and now we are at less than half of that. While economic conditions will speed and slow the pace of consolidation in the future, there is no doubt that intertwined demands of technology, compliance, and economies of scale will continue their relentless march. More efficient? Probably. Better? That’s another discussion, but at Inlanta our intuition says no. Which is why we developed an alternative to help you compete.”
Inlanta Mortgage’s Third Party Mortgage Origination platform is tailored to the needs of the community financial institution. Inlanta can provide the technology through a web-based platform that your lender or borrower can easily take a complete and compliant mortgage application, including conventional, FHA, USDA and jumbo. We can provide compliance relief by managing disclosures, processing, underwriting, and closing docs, and finally, we can provide economies of scale through a lending infrastructure that closed over a billion dollars in volume for 2016.
Let us help you originate more and worry less in 2017. Need more information? Contact Dave directly at davestephan@inlanta.com or call 262.754.6292. You can also visit our LinkedIn page here
