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Bank failures spark new questions about risk management in boardrooms, Tampa consultant says

By Christina Georgacopoulos | Tampa Bay Business Journal

May 5, 2023

The Federal Reserve’s review of Silicon Valley Bank and conclusion that it collapsed due to mismanagement strengthens the case of disgruntled shareholders who have since filed dozens of lawsuits against senior leadership. 

Bank executives are not the only ones who may be held liable if their business collapses due to poor risk management, according to Mike Tomasulo, a managing partner at Tampa-based BRP Group and the national management liability practice leader.

Tomasulo consults with senior management at public companies about directors’ and officers’ insurance and said the banking crisis in March sparked new conversations in the boardroom about risk and liability. As fiduciaries, board directors have a duty to ensure the safety and soundness of their banking partners, Tomasulo said.

Before the banking crisis, the likelihood of a bank failing “was not something worth even contemplating,” Tomasulo said. “No one ever thought they’d have $100 million in cash and not have access to it.”

The health of any particular bank will be a new board-level topic going forward, he said.

“Boards are given leeway to make mistakes … but they get into trouble when they don’t do their due diligence,” Tomasulo said.  

“They need to ask, ‘When’s the last time they did a stress test on their assets? What type of assets are they holding?’… There’s a lot of questions that weren’t necessarily being asked before because [the banking crisis] wasn’t expected,” he said. “They have to be at least asking those questions at the board level to show they’re meeting their fiduciary duty.” 

Interest in deposit insurance among commercial clients increased substantially after the chaos of March, according to Chris Hartman, the chief deposit officer for Orlando-based Cogent Bank.

Hartman said clients with substantial deposits can access millions of dollars of insurance by placing those funds in a deposit-sharing network. IntraFi, a firm that manages excess deposits for thousands of U.S. commercial banks in its network, divides a single depositor’s funds into accounts with the standard $250,000 Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. limits at banks in the network.

She said interest in the ICS network has risen significantly, but not all clients are taking that route. One of Cogent’s largest clients that holds upward of $40 million at the bank did not move its funds, which was a big vote of confidence in the bank’s management and overall health, Hartman said.

Some of Cogent’s clients who are bound by fiduciary duties, however, like property managers who hold funds on behalf of homeowners associations, elected to secure excess deposit insurance through IntraFi’s deposit network, Hartman said.

“More sophisticated customers started asking about the health of the bank and its management … so we really beefed up our corporate profile with those pieces of information so customers didn’t have to go searching for it, and that added a layer of assurance,” Hartman said.

Cogent’s deposits in the IntraFi network have increased around 50% since March, but the network still only accounts for a small portion of the bank’s total deposit base, she said. Cogent Bank is headquartered in Orlando and concentrated throughout the central and southwest Florida regions, with approximately 25% of its $1.4 billion deposit franchise in Tampa Bay.

Cogent, a tech-savvy commercial bank, hit a major milestone of $1 billion in assets in early 2022. The bank expanded to eight locations in Florida, made 60 new hires, and grew deposits at its Tampa Bay branches by 131% in 2021.