community - Blog - Global Risk Community2024-03-28T23:12:21Zhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/communityImagine a New European Community and a New Worldhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/imagine-a-new-european-community-and-a-new-world2016-07-01T01:02:35.000Z2016-07-01T01:02:35.000ZEnrique Raul Suarezhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/members/EnriqueRaulSuarez<div><p></p><p></p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8028245480,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8028245480,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="400" alt="8028245480?profile=original" /></a></p><h2 style="text-align:center;" class="center"><strong><em>Post-Brexit: Imagine a New European Community and a New World</em></strong></h2><p> </p><p style="text-align:center;" class="center"><em>"Imagine a new European community and eventually planetary community will develop, replacing the centralized power systems with an alliance of interconnected autonomous communities setting the foundations for a new epoch based on solidarity among people and cooperation with the powers of nature. Imagine this growing planetary movement would share an essential ethical code and would replace the drive for personal profit with the drive towards participation in and service for the greater benefit of humanity and the Earth. Imagine this movement would gradually dissolve the old nation-states, power blocs and cultural borders. Communities would be home to people from all over the world, including refugees from crisis areas. Once people have again found home in a real community, they no longer need to violently defend the construct of their “fatherland” against people from elsewhere. (Isn’t nationalism anyways just a compensation for the sense of “home” we have lost as humanity!)"</em></p><p></p><p><em>You can read the rest of this excellent article by Martin Winiecki in the below link:</em></p><p></p><p><em><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/post-brexit-imagine-a-new-european-community/5532892?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles" target="_blank">http://www.globalresearch.ca/post-brexit-imagine-a-new-european-community/5532892?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles</a></em></p><p></p><p> </p></div>Killing Off Community Banks in Favor of Megabankshttps://globalriskcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/killing-off-community-banks-in-favor-of-megabanks2015-10-24T00:06:54.000Z2015-10-24T00:06:54.000ZEnrique Raul Suarezhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/members/EnriqueRaulSuarez<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8028237861,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}8028237861,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="211" class="align-center" height="153" alt="8028237861?profile=original" /></a></p><p></p><h2 class="center" style="text-align:center;"><strong>Killing Off Community Banks — Intended Consequence of Dodd-Frank Act? “Orderly Liquidation Authority”. Consolidation of Megabanks</strong></h2><h2 class="center" style="text-align:center;"> </h2><p class="center" style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-3">Source:</span></p><p class="center" style="text-align:center;"></p><p class="center" style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-3"> <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/ellen-brown" target="_blank">Ellen Brown</a></span></p><p class="center" style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://ellenbrown.com/2015/10/21/killing-off-community-banks-intended-consequence-of-dodd-frank/" target="_blank">The Web of Debt Blog</a></span></p><p class="center" style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-3">21 October 2015</span></p><p></p><p><em>The Dodd-Frank regulations are so lethal to community banks that some say the intent was to force them to sell out to the megabanks. Community banks are rapidly disappearing — except in North Dakota, where they are thriving. </em></p><p>At over 2,300 pages, the Dodd Frank Act is the longest and most complicated bill ever passed by the US legislature. It was supposed to end “too big to fail” and “bailouts,” and to “promote financial stability.” But Dodd-Frank’s “orderly liquidation authority” has replaced bailouts with bail-ins, meaning that in the event of insolvency, big banks are to recapitalize themselves with the savings of their creditors and depositors. The banks deemed too big are more than 30% bigger than before the Act was passed in 2010, and 80% bigger than before the banking crisis of 2008. <a href="http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/break-up-the-big-banks" target="_blank">The six largest US financial institutions</a> now have assets of some $10 trillion, amounting to almost 60% of GDP; and they control nearly 50% of all bank deposits.</p><p>Meanwhile, their smaller competitors are struggling to survive. <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-five-years-dodd-frank-is-a-failure-1437342607" target="_blank">Community banks and credit unions are disappearing</a> at the rate of one a day. Access to local banking services is disappearing along with them. Small and medium-size businesses – the ones that hire two-thirds of new employees – are having trouble getting loans; students are struggling with sky-high interest rates; homeowners have been replaced by hedge funds acting as absentee landlords; and bank fees are up, increasing the rolls of the unbanked and underbanked, and driving them into the predatory arms of payday lenders.</p><p>Even some well-heeled clients are being rejected. In an October 19, 2015 article titled “<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/big-banks-to-americas-companies-we-dont-want-your-cash-1445161083?utm_content=Morning%20Scan%20for%20October%2019%2C%202015%7D&utm_medium=email&ET=paymentssource:e5363525:767732a:&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=morning%20scan-oct%2019%202015&st=email" target="_blank">Big Banks to America’s Firms: We Don’t Want Your Cash</a>,” the Wall Street Journal reported that some Wall Street banks are now telling big depositors to take their money elsewhere or be charged a deposit fee.</p><p>Municipal governments are also being rejected as customers. <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/01/bank-america-dumping-small-towns-and-cities-clients/7mDXv3M1StuZOBcwtFCuSN/story.html" target="_blank">Bank of America just announced</a> that it no longer wants the business of some smaller cities, which have been given 90 days to find somewhere else to put their money. <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/15/investing/bank-of-america-branches-layoffs/" target="_blank">Hundreds of local BofA branches</a> are also disappearing.</p><p>Hardest hit, however, are the community banks. <a href="http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/warring-ideologies-dash-small-banks-hopes-for-reg-relief-1076927-1.html" target="_blank">Today there are 1,524 fewer banks</a> with assets under $1 billion than there were in June 2010, before the Dodd-Frank regulations were signed into law.</p><p><strong>Collateral Damage or Intended Result?</strong></p><p>The rapid demise of community banking is blamed largely on Dodd-Frank’s massively complex rules and onerous capitalization requirements. Just doing the paperwork requires an army of compliance officers, and increased capital and loan requirements are eliminating the smaller banks’ profit margins. They have little recourse but to sell to the larger banks, which have large staffs capable of dealing with the regulations, and which skirt the capital requirements by parking assets in off-balance-sheet vehicles. (See “<a href="http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bankrules-weakening/" target="_blank">How Wall Street Captured Washington’s Effort to Rein in Banks</a>” in Reuters in April 2015.)</p><p><a href="http://www.mpamag.com/news/on-its-fifth-anniversary-hensarling-slams-doddfrank-23302.aspx" target="_blank">According to Rep. Jeb Hensarling</a> (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, the disappearance of community banks was not an unintended consequence of Dodd-Frank. He said in a speech in July:</p><blockquote><p>The Dodd-Frank architecture, first of all, has made us less financially stable. Since the passage of Dodd-Frank, the big banks are bigger and the small banks are fewer. But because Washington can control a handful of big established firms much easier than many small and zealous competitors, <em>this is likely an intended consequence of the Act</em>. Dodd-Frank concentrates greater assets in fewer institutions. It codifies into law ‘Too Big to Fail’ . . . . [Emphasis added.]</p></blockquote><p>In an article titled “<a href="http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/344612/Financial+Services/The+FDICs+New+Capital+Rules+And+Their+Expected+Impact+On+Community+Banks" target="_blank">The FDIC’s New Capital Rules and Their Expected Impact on Community Banks</a>,” Richard Morris and Monica Reyes Grajales concur. They note that “a full discussion of the rules would resemble an advanced course in calculus,” and that the regulators have ignored protests that the rules would have a devastating impact on community banks. Why? The authors suggest that the rules reflect “the new vision of bank regulation – that there should be bigger and fewer banks in the industry.”</p><p><strong>The Failure of Regulation</strong></p><p>Obviously, making the big banks bigger also serves the interests of the megabanks,<a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/?_r=1" target="_blank">whose lobbyists are well known</a> to have their fingerprints all over the legislation. How they have been able to manipulate the rules was seen last December, when legislation drafted by Citigroup and slipped into the Omnibus Spending Bill loosened the Dodd-Frank regulations on derivatives. As <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivatives-citigroup-lobbyists" target="_blank">noted in a Mother Jones article</a> before the legislation was passed:</p><blockquote><p>The Citi-drafted legislation will benefit five of the largest banks in the country—Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. These financial institutions control more than 90 percent of the $700 trillion derivatives market. If this measure becomes law, these banks will be able to use FDIC-insured money to bet on nearly anything they want. And if there’s another economic downturn, they can count on a taxpayer bailout of their derivatives trading business.</p></blockquote><p>Regulation is clearly inadequate to keep these banks honest and ensure that they serve the public interest. The world’s largest private banks have been caught in criminal acts that former bank fraud investigator Prof. William K. Black calls <a href="http://usawatchdog.com/jp-morgans-frauds-are-epicunprecedented-in-world-history-william-black/" target="_blank">the greatest frauds in history</a>. The litany of frauds involves more than a dozen felonies, including bid-rigging on municipal bond debt; colluding to rig interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars in mortgages, derivatives and other contracts; exposing investors to excessive risk; and engaging in multiple forms of mortgage fraud. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/eric-holder-banks-too-big_n_2821741.html" target="_blank">According to US Attorney General Eric Holder</a>, the guilty have gone unpunished because they are “too big to prosecute.” If they are too big to prosecute, they are too big to regulate.</p><p>But that doesn’t mean Congress won’t try. Dodd-Frank gives the Federal Reserve “heightened prudential supervision” over “systemically important” banks, essentially putting them under government control. According to Hensarling, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-five-years-dodd-frank-is-a-failure-1437342607" target="_blank">writing in the Wall Street Journal</a> in July, Dodd-Frank is turning America’s largest financial institutions into “functional utilities” and is delivering the power to allocate capital to political actors in Washington.</p><p>Thomas Hoenig, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, gave a speech in 2011 in which <a href="http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/warring-ideologies-dash-small-banks-hopes-for-reg-relief-1076927-1.html" target="_blank">he also described banking as a “public utility.”</a> (What he actually said was, “You’re a public utility, for crying out loud.”) Six months later, Hoenig was appointed vice chairman of the FDIC.</p><p>If the megabanks are going to be true public utilities, they probably need to be publicly-owned entities, which capture profits and direct credit in a way that actually serves the people. If Dodd-Frank’s several thousand pages of regulations cannot create a stable and sustainable banking system, the regulatory approach has failed. The whole system needs to be revamped.</p><p><strong>Restoring Community Banking: The Model of North Dakota </strong></p><p>Even if the megabanks were to become true public utilities, we would still need a thriving community banking sector. Community banks service local markets in a way that the megabanks with their standardized lending models are neither interested in nor capable of.</p><p>How can the community banks be preserved and nurtured? For some ideas, we can look to a state where they are still thriving – North Dakota. In a September 2015 article titled “<a href="https://ilsr.org/map-shows-how-well-the-bank-of-north-dakota-works/" target="_blank">How One State Escaped Wall Street’s Rule and Created a Banking System That’s 83% Locally Owned</a>,” Stacy Mitchell writes that North Dakota’s banking sector bears little resemblance to that of the rest of the country:</p><blockquote><p>North Dakotans do not depend on Wall Street banks to decide the fate of their livelihoods and the future of their communities, and rely instead on locally owned banks and credit unions. With 89 small and mid-sized community banks and 38 credit unions, North Dakota has <em>six times</em> as many locally owned financial institutions per person as the rest of the nation. And these local banks and credit unions control a resounding 83 percent of deposits in the state — more than twice the 30 percent market share that small and mid-sized financial institutions have nationally.</p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/Are-Community-Banks-Too-Sm-by-Scott-Baker-130312-662.html" target="_blank">Their secret is the century-old Bank of North Dakota</a>, the nation’s only state-owned depository bank, which partners with and supports the state’s local banks. In an April 2015 article titled “<a href="http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/is_dodd_frank_killing_community_banks_the_more_important_question_is_how_to_save_them" target="_blank">Is Dodd-Frank Killing Community Banks? The More Important Question is How to Save Them</a>”, Matt Stannard writes:</p><blockquote><p>Public banks offer unique benefits to community banks, including collateralization of deposits, protection from poaching of customers by big banks, the creation of more successful deals, and . . . regulatory compliance. The Bank of North Dakota, the nation’s only public bank, directly supports community banks and enables them to meet regulatory requirements such as asset to loan ratios and deposit to loan ratios. . . . [I]t keeps community banks solvent in other ways, lessening the impact of regulatory compliance on banks’ bottom lines.</p><p><a href="http://ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2/" target="_blank">We know</a> from FDIC data in 2009 that North Dakota had almost 16 banks per 100,000 people, the most in the country. A more important figure, however, is community banks’ loan averages per capita, which was $12,000 in North Dakota, compared to only $3,000 nationally. . . . During the last decade, banks in North Dakota with less than $1 billion in assets have averaged a stunning 434 percent more small business lending than the national average.</p></blockquote><p>The BND has also been very profitable for the state and its citizens. Over the last 21 years, the BND has generated almost $1 billion in profit and returned nearly $400 million to the state’s general fund, where it is available to support education and other public services while reducing the tax burden on residents and businesses.</p><p>The partnership of a state-owned bank with local community banks is a proven alternative for maintaining the viability of local credit and banking services. Other states would do well to follow North Dakota’s lead, not only to protect their local communities and local banks, but to bolster their revenues, escape Washington’s noose, and provide a bail-in-proof depository for their public funds.</p><p><em><strong>Ellen Brown</strong> is an attorney, founder of the <a href="http://publicbankinginstitute.org/" target="_blank">Public Banking Institute</a>, and author of twelve books including the best-selling <a href="http://webofdebt.com/" target="_blank">Web of Debt</a>. Her latest book, <a href="http://publicbanksolution.com/" target="_blank">The Public Bank Solution</a>, explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 300+ blog articles are at <a href="http://ellenbrown.com/" target="_blank">EllenBrown.com</a>. Listen to “<a href="http://itsourmoney.podbean.com/" target="_blank">It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown</a>” on PRN.FM.</em></p><p></p><p></p></div>The Purpose of an Organizationhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/the-purpose-of-an-organization2015-04-20T02:17:13.000Z2015-04-20T02:17:13.000ZEnrique Raul Suarezhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/members/EnriqueRaulSuarez<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8028231890,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="720" height="420" class="align-center" style="width:475px;height:255px;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8028231890,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="8028231890?profile=original" /></a>Henry Ford</p><p style="text-align:center;"></p><p>Edwards Deming described the purpose of an organization in New Economics, on page 51, as:</p><p></p><p>"The aim proposed here for any organization is for everybody to gain - stockholders, employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment - over the long term."</p><p></p><p>Like so much of what Deming said that makes sense to me. It is my sense the "conventional wisdom" would state something more along the lines of the purpose of a company is to make money. I would not agree. Rewarding the owners is important, but other stakeholders should be included in the purpose. Even with a strictly legal argument it is not true that a company exists only to make money. The company enters into legal obligations to employees, suppliers, customers and communities.</p><p></p><p>Conventional wisdom agrees that a company must comply with the law. Many of those laws are requirements society has put in place to ensure that companies focus on obligations to their customers, community, suppliers and the environment (over the long term).</p><p></p><p>Some might chose to view those legal requirements as only a means to make money. That a company exists to make money and that so long as a law doesn't require something else; any decision should be based only on long term financial benefit. I would not agree. The laws are a manifestation of the belief of the society that other important considerations exists that must be considered.</p><p></p><p>In the early stages of capitalism the business world was largely seen as amoral. That is no longer the case (again as I see "conventional wisdom"). Most, though not all, believe that companies have moral obligations to the environment, community, customers and employees. Many of these obligations have been turned into laws (just as there are laws that require the interests of the shareholders to be cared for). Those laws set the minimum legal limit that must be met. And they seem to pretty clearly express the decision society has made that companies exist within a society and have a larger purpose than making money for the owners. One benefit of companies is that they reward those who invested in them. They also provide jobs to employees and products and services to customers.</p><p></p><p>How those interests are balanced is not such an easy issue to address. I think Deming's quote is a good starting point for discussion. Right now we have the balance pretty heavily in favor of the owners (and making profit). I personally, think it makes sense to have that as a very important factor, though I favor increasing the focus on some other factors than is the current normal practice. Most importantly, I believe we need to increase the importance of the purpose of providing good jobs for employees.</p><p></p><p>The marketplace does a pretty good job of asserting the importance of customers and suppliers. Even so, regulation and law enforcement are necessary actors in those instances where the free market is insufficient. The changes in the world are making it very difficult for the community interests to be respected. And I think that this trend with likely increase. I plan to think more about what this will mean going forward.</p><p></p><p>There is an important difference between those that see the only true purpose of a company is making money and those that see a variety of purposes that must be balanced. I hope we can move the conventional wisdom to a more balanced view of the importance of the various stakeholders from what I see now as the current unhealthy focus.</p><p></p><p></p></div>SME Lending: Get Redi to Get Fundedhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/sme-lending-get-redi-to-get-funded2014-04-18T19:00:00.000Z2014-04-18T19:00:00.000ZJames McCallumhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/members/JamesMcCallum<div><div style="text-align:justify;"><a href="http://sum2llc.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/commercial-financing.gif" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1084" src="http://sum2llc.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/commercial-financing.gif?w=300" height="300" title="commercial-financing" width="300" /></a><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The tough conditions in the credit markets require small businesses to communicate and demonstrate their credit worthiness to satisfy exacting credit risk standards of lenders. Credit channels are open and loans are being made but strict federal regulations and heightened risk aversion by lenders places additional burdens on borrowers to demonstrate they are a good credit risk.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You have to be prepared,” said Robert Seiwert, a senior vice president with the American Bankers Association. “If you have a viable business model and the banker feels that this business model is going to work in this new economy, you have a very good chance of getting financing. But you have to be ready to show that it will work.”</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Small and medium-sized businesses are the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. Their ability to prosper and grow is key to job creation to help our nation recover from the economic slowdown. But with the number of bad loans mushrooming in recent years because of the economic downturn, federal regulators have put in more stringent guidelines for qualifying for financing.", stated Ken Lewis former CEO of Bank of America.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Communication with Lenders is Key</span></strong></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maintaining an open line of communication with your credit providers is key. During times of prosperity the lines of communication are open; but during times when businesses face adversity the phone stops ringing and lenders start to get nervous. When business conditions get difficult businesses need to communicate with greater frequency and openness with their lenders. Bankers don't like surprises.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><strong><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reason to Communicate: Risk Assessment</span></strong></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The entrepreneurial nature of small business owners make them natural risk takers. They have an unshakable belief in the fail safe nature of their ideas and have strong ego identification with their business. This often makes them blind to the risks lingering within the business enterprise. Their innate optimism may also cloud an ability to objectively analyze business risks and prevent them from seizing opportunities as a result of poor assessment capabilities.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Conducting a disciplined business assessment will uncover the risks and opportunities present in the enterprise and in the markets that the business serves. This risk assessment is a great opportunity to communicate to lenders and credit providers that business management are capable risk managers and are a worthy credit risk. Lenders will be impressed by the transparency of your risk governance practice and will be more disposed to provide financing for projects and opportunities that will propel future growth.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Banks are looking for businesses that are prepared with their financial and business plans. Business owners must present a clear purpose for the loan tied to clearly defined business objectives. The risk assessment exercise is a vital tool that assists in the construction of a business plan that builds lender's confidence in your business. The assessment will reveal the largest risk factors confronting your business and outline clearly defined opportunities that promises optimal returns on loan capital.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its music to a bankers ears that clients are managing risk well and have identified the most promising opportunities for business investments. It is usually a recipe for success and that will allow you and your banker to develop a trusted business relationship based on honesty and transparency.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><b><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get Credit|Redi</span></b></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sum2 offers a portfolio of risk assessment applications and consultative services to businesses, governments and non-profit organizations. Our leading product Credit Redi offers SMEs tools to manage financial health and improve corporate credit rating to manage enterprise risk and attract capital to fund initiatives to achieve business goals. Credit Redi helps SMEs improve credit standing to demonstrate creditworthiness to bankers and investors. On Google Play: </span><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wCreditRediMobileOffice">Get Credit|Redi</a></div><div style="text-align:justify;"></div><div style="text-align:justify;"></div><div><div><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wCreditRediMobileOffice" style="color:#6699cc;text-decoration:none;"><img border="0" src="https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-gV9F96ANq94%2FUz2hAQy5mrI%2FAAAAAAAAEzw%2F5sQVfyDcmkI%2Fs1600%2Fcredit%2Bredi%2Blogo%2B100.png&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" style="border:none;" alt="proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-gV9F96ANq94%2FUz2hAQy5mrI%2FAAAAAAAAEzw%2F5sQVfyDcmkI%2Fs1600%2Fcredit%2Bredi%2Blogo%2B100.png&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" /></a></div><div style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#333333;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:15px;line-height:20.790000915527344px;text-align:justify;"><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wCreditRediMobileOffice" style="color:#6699cc;text-decoration:none;">Get Credit|Redi</a></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom:0pt;margin-top:0pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom:0pt;margin-top:0pt;text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Risk: SME, commercial lending, alternative credit channels, credit risk, community banking, small business lending, business plan, capital raise, risk assessment</span></div></div>SME Credit Channels Openhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/sme-credit-channels-open2014-03-20T01:00:00.000Z2014-03-20T01:00:00.000ZJames McCallumhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/members/JamesMcCallum<div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-keiNHgpQq08/Uyr3QRF9fCI/AAAAAAAAEuQ/6Gl5tfPL3KU/s1600/small+biz+loan+que.jpg" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-keiNHgpQq08/Uyr3QRF9fCI/AAAAAAAAEuQ/6Gl5tfPL3KU/s1600/small+biz+loan+que.jpg" height="185" width="320" alt="small+biz+loan+que.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Golden Pacific Bank in California has created a new lending subsidiary to provide SBA loans for small mid-size business enterprises (SME). The program called SmartBiz uses an advanced technology platform that allows the bank to reduce the cost of borrowing and extend credit more efficiently to creditworthy SMEs. </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lending platform was developed by the firm BillFloat. The technology enables SmartBiz to efficiently originate, process and close SBA loans. The cost of processing loan applications and credit decisioning time frames are reduced; positioning the lender to better serve the credit requirements of the banks SME clients. </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SmartBiz is looking to reduce a typical credit decisioning time frame from 90 days to less than a week. The bank believes its technology will be a competitive advantage; enabling the extension of longer term loans, lower rates, lower monthly payments and options currently available to small businesses. </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Golden Pacific is a community bank with $132 million in assets. Deploying Bill Floats lending platform will drive operational efficiency, increase the banks return on capital and generate significant fee income for the bank. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sum2's clients use Credit|Redi to determine financial health and creditworthiness. </span><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit|Redi provides users business assessment applications to optimize financial performance and create business plans that are sure to win the confidence of lenders and capital providers.</span> <span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Credit|Redi improves profitability, reduces risk and enhances creditworthiness.</span><br /> <span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get Credit|Redi on Google Play here.</span> <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wCreditRediMobileOffice" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get Credit|Redi</a></div><div><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom:0pt;margin-top:0pt;"><div style="line-height:1.15;text-align:justify;"></div><br /><div style="background-color:#FFFFFF;line-height:normal;text-align:justify;"><table cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float:left;margin-right:1em;padding:4px;text-align:justify;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6tsBYd8aWv0/Uyi-_AnNPPI/AAAAAAAAEsc/L34EUpPmhuc/s1600/credit+readi+100.png" style="color:#6699cc;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-decoration:none;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6tsBYd8aWv0/Uyi-_AnNPPI/AAAAAAAAEsc/L34EUpPmhuc/s1600/credit+readi+100.png" style="border:none;" alt="credit+readi+100.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size:12px;"><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wCreditRediMobileOffice&hl=en" style="color:#6699cc;text-decoration:none;">Get Credit|Redi</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#333333;font-family:Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;font-size:14.285714149475098px;line-height:16.25px;"><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:14.285714149475098px;">risk; sme, credit risk, lending, private equity, financial health, risk assessment, credit repair, business </span><span style="font-family:'Open Sans', sans-serif, tahoma;font-size:14.285714149475098px;">planning and analysis, SBA loan</span></div></div><div style="line-height:1.15;text-align:justify;"></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-top:0pt;"><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#333333;font-family:Arial;font-size:15px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"> </span></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-top:0pt;"><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#333333;font-family:Arial;font-size:15px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;"> </span></div></div></div></div>WISHING YOU THE BEST, vote for the best content of 2010 on GlobalRisk communityhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/wishing-you-the-best-vote-for2010-12-26T19:30:00.000Z2010-12-26T19:30:00.000ZBoris Agranovichhttps://globalriskcommunity.com/members/BorisAgranovich<div><div><span class="font-size-4"><a href="http://holiday.ning.com/card?i=6343251:Card:3770" target="_blank">Wishing you the best</a> </span></div>
<div><span class="font-size-3">What a year! GlobalRisk Community has been launched in 2010, and now we connect almost 3000 professionals worldwide. We want to thank you for your active participation, continued support and thoughtful feedback about everything we’ve been doing.</span></div>
<div><span class="font-size-3">We have even more in store for 2011!</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:19px;"><strong>Vote for the Best content on our site published in 2010 by placing your comments to this blog post. </strong>Has there been any one, single, discussion, blog post, comment which is clearly the best of the year? Maybe it’s very funny, very useful or just powerfully delivered.</span></div>
<div>Have a great holiday season!</div>
<div>Boris Agranovich,</div></div>