Over Pricing Your Largest Most Profitable Customers

One of the biggest mistakes many FIs make when setting pricing strategy is to establish a ‘base lending rate’. Often this ‘base rate’ is applied regardless of the type, size, or term of the loan, and worse, is often set to Prime. For example, when considering a five-year fixed rate on a commercial real estate loan, from time to time we come across a client or prospect that applies their ‘base rate’ of Prime which today would be 8.5%. The problem with that approach is we are ignoring a fundamental principle of finance – we’re ignoring interest rate risk and the term structure of rates.

The Prime lending rate is an overnight rate – technically Prime can change any day. Obviously a 5-year rate is a much longer-term rate. Comparing Prime to a five-year fixed rate is really comparing apples and oranges. Let’s dig into this a little further. Today, Prime is 8.5% and a five-year fixed rate advance from the FHLB is 4.25% – a difference of 4.25%. In February of 2022 Prime was 3.25% and a five-year FHLB advance was 2.25% – a difference of only 1.00%. In February of 2020 Prime was 4.75% and a five-year FHLB advance was 1.50% – a difference of 3.25%. And in February of 2018 Prime was 4.50% and a five-year FHLB advance was 3.00% – a difference of only 1.50%. As you can see, the relationship between five-year rates and Prime is highly inconsistent. Over the past 6 years Prime has been as much as 4.25% and as little as 1.00% above a five-year rate. So, we have to ask ourselves, why would I tie the rate on a five-year fixed rate loan to Prime?

The other challenge this practice can lead to in the current environment is over-pricing some of our largest, most profitable customers or prospects – which could lead to losing existing relationships or get in the way of winning new relationships. We model loan scenarios for FIs all across the country many times each day so we see a large number of loan opportunities and how they are being priced in the market. Particularly on larger deals – say $1,500,000 and above – we often see rates in the mid to low 7% range. However, we also see rates as high as 8.5% on the exact same scenarios – particularly when the FI currently follows the ‘base lending rate’ philosophy. One of the ways Pricing Manager can help your FI earn more net interest income is by helping win more larger, profitable deals by pricing more competitively.

If you would like to learn more about Pricing Manager, please contact Strunk at info@strunkaccess.com or 800-728-3116.