Independent Banker - March 2018 - 42

Grandfatherly
pride-Zimmerman takes
pride in his three grandchildren,
(l-r) Britain, Reagan and
Lennon Fisher.
of board and management personnel from each bank.
However, unlike when a smaller institution is folded into a
larger one, Standard Bank had to choose which products,
services and technologies to keep from each institution.
The answer wasn't always obvious, since both banks were
profitable. Committees tasked with deciding which products
and services to retain quickly became deadlocked.
Each side was convinced its method was in customers'
best interests. There were even some challenges at the
board level over corporate governance approaches.
" If people were detached, it might have been easier, "
notes Zimmerman. " But this isn't just a job. Our employees
" When you audit a
company, you see it from
the inside out in a way a
normal customer doesn't. "
are deeply invested personally in the mission and what we
are doing. Each group believed in how they were doing
it. The solution was to remove as much emotion from the
process as possible and focus on facts. "
That meant looking at pricing and profitability
issues or determining which bank had already gone the
furthest with a particular product or service. Standard
Bank's president, Andy Hasley, the former president and
CEO of Allegheny Valley Bank, was heavily involved in
the process right from the beginning. Decisions were
ultimately made, although it took far longer than originally
40 ICBA Independent Banker March 2018
anticipated, and some issues are still being resolved.
" If you stay in a common-sense, pragmatic mode, you'll
be successful, " believes Zimmerman, who began his career
as a certified public accountant with KPMG. " If, during
the discussion, you can connect with the staff and explain
the real logical, factual and customer-oriented reasons,
you can appeal to them and get them on board. "
Making a case
It's a tactic that worked for him when the Financial
Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was developing the
Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) standard, which
requires banks to account for credit losses at the point
of loan origination. FASB was initially going to require
complex modeling systems for institutions of all sizes,
but it eventually relented and permitted community
banks to continue using their personal understanding of
local markets to determine loan-loss reserves, including
qualitative factors, historical losses and spreadsheets.
After all of the discussions and examples, Zimmerman
was named as the sole community bank representative
on the FASB's Transition Resource Group, which is
continuing to work on fine-tuning CECL.
" FASB was convinced its way was the best way, " says
Zimmerman. " Over a period of time, we convinced them
that they didn't really understand how the community
banking model worked. We spent a long time helping
them understand and explaining how it works and that
they needed to make changes. "
In the end, Zimmerman and other community bankers
convinced FASB to make changes, a victory he attributes
to respect, perseverance and patience.
" What you do is say, 'Here are the facts, and here is the
reason,' and the follow-up is, 'Do you have any questions?
Is there anything wrong with what I'm asking you to do?
Independent Banker - March 2018

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