Disaster recovery

From delivering water door to door to turning offices into shelters, bankers in the state have adapted their hurricane-response plans to offer customers and employees relief from the past week's snow emergency and power outages.

A severe cold snap in the state has tested financial institutions unaccustomed to such weather-related disruption.

For decades lawmakers have ignored broad structural flaws in the National Flood Insurance Program, which underpins millions of home mortgages. And the problem is only getting worse.

From natural disasters to pandemics, the best business-continuity strategy may simply be to ensure you have a strategy.

James Smith, who recently completed his gradual transition out of banking, was spearheading a public-private economic development plan for Connecticut when the coronavirus pandemic hit. The crisis made the need for the plan greater — and the job harder.

Coronavirus has taken bankers out of their comfort zone. But they should view adaptations they’ve made in confronting the pandemic as a chance to hone their emergency response skills, not a permanent new normal.

Many banks are offering low-interest loans to help consumers and small businesses withstand the economic shocks of the pandemic. Some are also doing away with ATM, overdraft and late fees because, as one CEO put it, that revenue “is not the most important thing right now.”

The credit union regulator's Office of Credit Union Resources and Expansion is making grants of up to $7,500 available to low-income designated institutions.

Automated and interactive teller machines aren’t germ-free in the best of times, and the pandemic has raised new concerns about the possibility of those devices infecting consumers and staff.

The agency will be tasked with providing $50 billion in loans to small businesses harmed by the pandemic. It is unclear whether the SBA will need help from banks and CUs.