Voya’s Cameron, Wood Say Cash-Flush Community Banks Can Find Growth In C&I Loans
In an opinion piece for the ABA Banking Journal (8/18), Voya Investment Management’s Bank Advisory Group Co-Managers Randy Cameron and David Wood say community banks today “are flush with cash,” but they are having trouble finding growth opportunities while “earning as little as zero to 10 basis points ... when the industry’s cost of funds generally exceeds this return by a fair margin.” For banks searching for growth, the authors “believe an answer lies within the syndicated loan market for secured C&I loans.” Firms like Voya “work directly with the agent banks to consolidate all of the borrowers’ data,” and Voya analysts “re-underwrite the transactions to bank-like standards for their client banks.” Cameron and Wood say the “relative value and efficiencies of this portfolio, combined with liquidity and flexibility that banks simply do not have with a local C&I portfolio, make these products something that community banks should consider.”