The 15 Commandments of Banking

A series of general principles that govern banking.

The only hard-and-fast rule in banking is that there are no hard-and-fast rules in banking. What works for one bank may or may not work for another. A bank is like a recipe with many ingredients that’s tailored to local taste.

That said, as you study successes and failures in the industry, a series of general principles coalesce. I’ve drawn up a list of fifteen of them. Many of you will be familiar with these, while to others they will be new.

Think of these as rebuttable presumptions — presumed to be true, but rebuttable in specific situations.