For too many community banks, net interest margin has become a pricing battle they simply cannot win. Matching rates may keep you in the game today, but it won’t keep your bank independent tomorrow.
The highest-performing community banks don’t win because they offer the lowest price. They win because they’ve positioned themselves so differently that customers willingly pay more. That’s the real competitive advantage—and it’s one that many banks never discover.
In this week’s video, you’ll discover:
If your institution is still winning business primarily by matching competitors’ rates, it may be time to rethink your approach. The banks producing exceptional net interest margins aren’t simply getting lucky—they’ve built a completely different value proposition.
Watch this week’s video to discover how your bank can stop competing on price and start competing on value.
Net interest margin. Three of my favorite words. Why? Because it is such an important component of what takes a bank to the top of its peer group.
Listen, if you’re tired of being average and competing on rate, there is a way out of that mess. I would suggest that the banks that don’t figure out a way to stop having to match rates are probably not going to maintain their independence going forward. Let’s face it, there is more competition than ever, and banks are undercutting each other on pricing. And yet, there are those who command premium pricing. What do they do? What do they know?
Why won’t they tell you their secrets? Well, you need to, in fact, know their secrets about how they position themselves, how they identify those who are likely to pay premium pricing, and how they arrange the situation such that the customer is telling them that what they bring that’s different is worth millions to them. Therefore, when they charge twenty thousand dollars extra, it is the bargain of the century, thereby taking them out of competing against competitors. The only thing they’re competing against is not having that special uniqueness the bank offers. You think it can’t be done?
Well, maybe you should hang out with the folks who are getting it done because if you cannot suspend disbelief and aren’t willing to say, “Maybe there’s something we don’t know,” I can guarantee you, you will continue to match rate. I don’t think banks can continue to do that anymore. Let’s face it, the big banks have a competitive advantage in pricing. We can’t compete in that space.
But listen, there will always be room for the community bank that’s the boutique bank, that adds tremendous value, knows that they’re worth more, and doesn’t say those lame things like, “We have good people,” and, “We’ve been around for one hundred and twenty years.” That’s not going to command more than twenty basis points more, and you can’t make it on twenty basis points more. This is the time to really bring in additional pricing. So I hope to see you discover how to do that.
I’m teaching a special class on how to do that. I hope I see you there.
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