Stop Rate Matching: The Strategy That Protects Your Net Interest Margin [VIDEO]

I bet your strategic plan does not have anything in it that says, “We want to match rates. We want to shrink our net interest margin.”

“Oh, what can we do to match the rates of our desperate competitors?”

Those words are probably not in your strategic plan, and yet the way that your plan is being executed demonstrates a reliable, predictable pattern, which basically means your people are still matching rates. So we need to address rate matching, not only from a decommoditization standpoint, but also how you handle this strategically at the same time.

I’ll tell you what—it’s really easy to do what’s normal in banking: sit behind the desks, wait for the requests, match the rates, or, on the deals that you call out on, take them through a typical sales process but then end up having to match the rates anyway.

What is it about your strategy that’s wrong? If you knew that, you’d say, “Roxanne, I’d have this fixed by now.” Well, of course. But how long can you live with not fixing the strategy that doesn’t allow you to increase your pricing?

There are many false attempts, and many people try very hard in their banks, as good bankers, to command premium pricing, and yet the job doesn’t get done. There’s always the next excuse.

“It’s the competitors.”

“It’s that nobody is loyal anymore.”

There are lots of excuses, but what are the strategies that are going to take you out of that? How are you going to approach things?

Strategy, by definition, is this: with limited resources, what do you need to do to make sure you hit an outcome? Most people only talk about the limited resources. The “doing” has everything to do with: Do you have the right sales system? Do you have the right differentiation?

Do you have the right attentiveness to the right sales system? Does everyone know how to follow it? And the proof is in the pudding, as my grandfather used to say. If you’re commanding great premium pricing, your people are doing all of those things right.