Friends,
As many of you know, I’ve spent the past two years capturing video footage across the American banking industry. Green Bay, San Fransisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Monica, Fresno, Buffalo, Boston, Dallas, Austin, Abilene, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Seattle, Portland, Spokane, Anchorage, Fairbanks, New York, Washington, D.C., and all throughout Alabama and Louisiana.
I’ve been given access to the leaders of banks of all sizes. We don’t spend an hour together. We typically spend a day together, if not two. And early on, as I was teaching myself videography, I sometimes had to revisit a city three times, as was the case with BOM Bank in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
This access comes as part of an unstated bargain in which I use the access to the benefit of the broader banking industry. Doing so is the purpose of the present project — a documentary series on American banking.
With this project, I have done my best to paint inside portraits of some of the greatest banks in the United States. By great, I mean both in terms of shareholder value creation as well as in terms of significance to their communities. Among the banks we’ll visit are First Financial Bank in Abilene, Five Star Bank in Sacramento, Frost Bank in San Antonio, and M&T Bank in Buffalo.
The series is going to be unique in that, as opposed to a short series of long episodes, I’ve decided instead on a long series of short episodes — two episodes a week, a few minutes each. In the case of M&T Bank, where the series begins, there will be upwards of a dozen episodes that collectively tell the story of one of the greatest value creators in modern American banking. We drive around Buffalo. We visit a branch. An ice cream shop. An elementary school. M&T’s technology hub. And the nineteenth floor of One M&T Bank Plaza — M&T’s former c-suite and for thirty-five years the office of Robert G. Wilmers. (M&T’s Buffalo-based executives now office on the twentieth floor.)
My goal is to present banking in a new light. Visually cool and substantively sophisticated. It is an important industry. Community banks in particular. I’ve spent time alone at all hours of day and night droning in unfamiliar small towns and cities across the country. It’s one thing to do that in Minerva, Ohio, an idyllic town in Eastern Ohio that’s home to Consumers National Bank. It’s another thing to do it in Tuskegee, Alabama, a town with no bank, where, come sundown, it is best to not meander alone in its abandoned town square. Nothing, literally nothing, is more important to the health of a community than the money multiplier.
If you’re reading this, I’ll publish two of these a week. I’d love if you shared them with your banking and non-banking friends. This is a story worth telling. And I’ve worked hard to make the telling fun and interesting for everyone.
And for those who want to experience my work in person, all bankers are welcome to join me and my friends Nov. 2-4 in Dallas for the Maxfield on Banks Masterclass. It’s my third symposium. And it will be the best. An amazing experience. If you’re in banking and are interested in attending, reach out to me here or to my team at operations@maxfieldonbanks.com. We’d love to have you.
