Dr. Thomas is the nation's leading expert and author on the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA. He has a Ph.D. in business and applied economics and an M.A. in finance from The Wharton School as well as an MBA from the University of Miami and a B.S.B.A. (High Honors) from the University of Florida. Dr. Thomas taught banking and monetary economics at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for 42 years. He is also a 20-plus year member of the board of directors and chairman of the nominating/corporate governance committee of a community bank. As chairman of the board of trustees and co-founder/founder of two CRA qualified investment impact bond funds since 1999, he has facilitated the deployment of several billions of dollars of community development investments in disadvantaged communities. Dr. Thomas was a recipient of one of the first three awards of excellence from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, or NCRC, in 1994, the other two awarded to Representative Joe Kennedy and Comptroller of the Currency Eugene Ludwig. As a consultant to both the private and federal sectors, his thought leadership is reflected in today's existing CRA regulations.
-
Banks are racing to adopt artificial intelligence while often de-emphasizing basic banking education — human intelligence — at the new employee, executive, and board levels. That's a recipe for disaster.
September 14
-
America's smallest bank, with just $3.7 million of assets, survived for more than a century, including the Great Depression and the Great Recession. But, it could not survive overzealous regulators.
August 10 -
Washington, D.C., may be the epicenter of the nation's birthday celebrations, but the financiers, financial institutions and city that funded it deserve some attention, too.
July 6 -
The coming mixed-martial-arts fight on the White House lawn is bound to get a lot of attention, but a far more consequential heavyweight fight between President Trump and former Fed Chair Jerome Powell has already been decided.
June 8 -
Kevin Warsh is a younger version of Jay Powell but with a convincing economist "eminence front." What Warsh does not have, as was the case with Powell, is an economics Ph.D., and that, as the post-pandemic inflation surge has shown us, is critical.
May 11 -
Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady knew his opponents better than they knew themselves. Smart bankers should too. Here's a 10-point "wristband playbook" for mastering banking's other KYC: know your competition.
April 13 -
Branchless and out-of-state banks are harvesting deposits in Florida and lending them out elsewhere, a situation that leads to serious underinvestment in desperately needed infrastructure and affordable housing.
March 9 -
Being a good CFO does not always translate into being a good CEO. Ken Thomas identifies ten different kinds of CFOs who just aren't chief executive officer material.
February 9 -
Following President Trump's aggressive bank deregulation agenda, the FDIC and OCC, and occasionally the increasingly politicized Fed, are in a race to slash compliance requirements. Bankers should remember that the pendulum can always swing back.
January 12 -
The supersonic Concorde was one of aerospace technology's greatest achievements. However, its ultimate commercial failure should be a lesson for those pushing AI into banking. Advanced technologies often develop faster than consumers' ability to benefit from them.
December 8
