This is Part One of the Industry Primers audio program on United States regional banks, published by Latticework from MOI Global. It is the first of two audio programs that accompany the written primer, and it is the story of the industry, told for a general audience. The account is built from documented scenes, with the people named, the dates given, and the participants quoted in their own words. No background in banking is assumed, and the terms it uses are explained as they arrive. This episode is public.
The subject is money that belongs to somebody else. A bank buys money from depositors and sells it to borrowers, and the money can leave at any time, by law, by a competing product, or by a wire transfer sent in the space of a morning. Every scene in the program is a case of that money arriving, staying, or going.
The program runs in fourteen sections:
Are We a Dinosaur? In the fall of 2004 the man who owned a bank in Plano, Texas stops buying loans, and over three years takes it from $7.7 billion of assets down to $2.9 billion, until one of his own directors reduces the matter to four words.
A Country of Small Banks. The first commercial bank in the United States opens in Philadelphia on January 7, 1782, and the Pennsylvania Assembly votes its charter away less than four years later because its credit reached the city and not the farmers.
Three Hours and Eight Million Dollars. The Knickerbocker Trust Company of New York, with $62 million of deposits, pays out $8 million in three hours on the morning of Tuesday, October 22, 1907 and is finished by lunchtime.
The Little Fellow. A produce merchant named A. P. Giannini opens the Bank of Italy in San Francisco in 1904 with $150,000 of capital, and twenty-six years later tells a House committee who a bank is really for.
The Week Without Banks. Franklin Roosevelt signs Proclamation 2039 at one in the morning on Monday, March 6, 1933, and a country of 125 million people goes a week with no banking at all.
We Hit the Jackpot. Two signing ceremonies two and a half years apart, Jimmy Carter on March 31, 1980 and Ronald Reagan in the Rose Garden on October 15, 1982, free the price of deposits and then widen what the institutions paying that price were allowed to lend against.
It Is Called Too Big to Fail. Continental Illinois loses its funding by wire in May 1984, and on September 19 a congressman in room 2128 of the Rayburn House Office Building gives the new kind of bank its name.
Where Were These Professionals? Judge Stanley Sporkin dismisses the suit brought by the owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan on August 22, 1990, and closes the opinion by turning to the lawyers and accountants who were in the room and said nothing.
The Builders. NCNB of Charlotte wins the failed First RepublicBank Corporation of Dallas in 1988 because its people had read the tax rulings nobody else put into a bid, and the Texas operation earns $308 million in 1989, half the buyer’s earnings for the year.
A Message to One’s Partners. Robert Wilmers takes control of a $2 billion Buffalo bank in 1983 and writes its owners a letter every year for thirty-four years, and Warren Buffett puts in writing in 1991 that what he has bought is a person.
The Wisdom of No. The chief credit officer of Washington Mutual stands in front of thousands of the company’s managers at a 2004 retreat and answers the advertising line the speaker ahead of him had been selling.
Not Even a Penny From the FDIC. Wachovia is handed to Citigroup on Monday, September 29, 2008 with the public absorbing the losses past $42 billion, and four days later Wells Fargo signs for the whole company with no assistance at all.
One Million Dollars a Second. Silicon Valley Bank loses $42 billion of deposits in ten hours on Thursday, March 9, 2023, expects to lose $100 billion more the next day, and is closed before lunch instead.
The Committee Will Deliver Price Stability. The Federal Open Market Committee votes twelve to none on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 to raise the federal funds rate to 3.75 to 4.00 percent, its first increase since the tightening of 2022 and 2023.
The program runs 1 hour 24 minutes (1:23:43). The written primer and its companion slide deck are on the Latticework Substack under the title Industry Primer: US Regional Banks. Part Two, the deep dive for professional investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework.
This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.
