Commercial Banking

One of the single most successful CRE lenders I’ve ever met is Roger Disalvatore. Roger is an excellent human being, a wonderful father and the best CRE lender I know. His approach to all real-estate based lending, including national projects, is firmly anchored in first-hand knowledge and relationship building. Here are some of the main principles I learned from Roger; they all focus on one thing: building lasting relationships. Take a sincere interest in your…

Regional bank dealmaking heated up considerably in the second half of 2025. Comptroller Gould’s comments on the removal of artificial bank size regulatory heightened standards blew significant winds into regional banks’ sails, yielding, a wave of activity in that space that has not been present for many years. Scale, geographic diversification, and physical presence in attractive markets were the drivers of this large bank mergers. The regulatory step-back allowed market forces to prevail, and, with…

I wrote this article decades ago. When I reread it recently it reaffirmed that, the more things seem different, the more they are the same. “We have fought for years to keep our customers out of the branch; now we are fighting to get them back in so we can sell the, a variety of products and services,“ says one community banker, echoing the feelings of many others. But what do the customers want? Is…