Partnered In Business!

by: Jonathan Briscoe

 “Sound judgement is the rarest form of capital” — Andrew Carnegie

The banking world made headlines again this week. Fifth Third and Comerica announced a $10.9 billion merger that will create one of the ten largest banks in the country, nearly $300 billion in assets under one banner. It’s a massive deal, the kind that dominates financial news and fuels Wall Street excitement. For communities like ours, it sparks a quieter conversation: when big gets bigger, what happens to small? Mergers like this are designed for efficiency. They promise more technology, broader reach, and greater resources. All good things, in theory, but growth comes with distance. Each time a charter is absorbed, the decision-making moves a little farther from the people who live and work in the communities those banks once served. You can’t always measure that loss, but you can feel it. Especially in small towns where banking has always been personal. That’s where partnership still matters. Not blind trust, not favoritism but real partnership. The kind that understands both the numbers and the story behind them. Someone that studies a financial statement and still takes time to ask about the people who make those numbers possible. Good banking isn’t about ignoring risk; it’s about knowing how to evaluate it with clarity and context. It’s being disciplined enough to say no when you must, and wise enough to recognize a good opportunity when others overlook it. Being truly partnered in business correlates to proximity. It’s being close enough to understand, present enough to listen, and invested enough to care about the outcome. Proximity is what allows local bankers to make decisions that aren’t just financially sound, but strategically right for the people they serve. That kind of judgment can’t be coded into an algorithm or scaled across a thousand branches; it must be learned every day, lived out, and earned over time. So, while the headlines celebrate the rise of another national powerhouse, I’ll celebrate something else: the kind of banking that still knows your name, still answers your call, and still believes success is measured by relationships, not only ratios. The industry may keep consolidating, but trust doesn’t consolidate, it compounds. At the end of the day, banking may be getting bigger, but the best kind of banking still happens small.