The "Irving Problem" in Banking
Community banks don't have a tech problem. They have an Irving.
A community bank's competitive edge in complex lending lives in its people, not its systems. Take that veteran: they know how to think through commercial real estate deals, small business loans, USDA programs, and tax credit structures. It's all the messy, nuanced stuff that doesn’t fit neatly into a playbook. For decades, banks have relied on these brilliant individuals to hold the process together.
But as community institutions grow, relying on a single "Irving" becomes a bottleneck.
The truth is that the magic wasn’t just Irving himself. It was the brilliant, unwritten process he organically created. When we blindly automate, we don't just replace a manual step; we accidentally destroy the secret recipe.
The goal for modern banking isn't to replace these veterans with sterile automation. The goal is to collaborate around them today. We need to build technology that safeguards the process so the magic stays, while simultaneously freeing the human to do what they do best: apply deep judgment, navigate complexity, and build relationships.
By capturing that nuanced expertise now, we preserve that knowledge and give the entire team the tools they need to compete and grow. Community institutions matter. If they are going to keep competing and growing, the goal shouldn't be to automate the humanity out of the process. It should be to secure the process, free the human, and empower the entire team.
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