You know the saying that timing is everything. In the case of blogs and CFC, this is very true. The past 18 months have delivered more change in banking than most of us can ever remember. We have examined these changes and their implications in our regular research, but the pace of change demands that even a research team leverages the means available to communicate better and more often. Welcome to our Blog.

For those of you whom I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting, my name is Sharon Chinn and I am the head of research for the Council on Financial Competition (CFC). More importantly, as I close out the 20th year of my professional life (eek), I still fondly reflect on my prior roles in banking as a teller, a branch manager, a retirement plan provider, and a strategic planner. Today, it is my privilege to work with you as we face the most serious challenges the industry has ever seen.

As many of you are on the hook for improving transparency, we will do the same for you. It is my hope that through this blog the Council can share its work, ideas, and needs with you on a regular basis. This way, you will know what we are thinking about and working on as often as you would like. And, you should feel free to comment about it. Your feedback makes our work better.

Over the next several weeks, you will meet our team through our blogs. Let me take a minute to give them each of them a quick (and very informal) introduction. Derek Frost is our resident doctor of consumer banking. Michelle Sato has authored much of the CFC work for the past several years.  Anne Walbridge is our small business guru and a Twitter enthusiast. Kiara Domingo has hosted customer focus groups and is an integral part of our branch sales work.

We look forward to being in touch more often and in a less formal way. Talk to you soon.

For those of you who have never blogged, I will let you in on a little secret. Writing your first blog post is not easy. The first post sets the tone. Should it be edgy?  Creative?  Funny?  Luckily, I stumbled across a blog where the author stated “Writing your first blog post is just like walking into a room full of people you’ve never met.” So, with that in mind, I will employ the advice of my mother and do the polite thing. I will start with an introduction.

FS Edge is a blog brought to you by The Business Banking Board (BBB), The Council on Financial Competition (CFC) and The Operations Council (OC.) For the uninitiated, BBB, CFC and OC are membership organizations for leading financial services executives. We provide resources to help these executives make confident decisions and gain global insights. If you want to read more about our organization and our “day jobs” you can check out our corporate website.

What makes us unique is our perspective, which is grounded in the constant and unprecedented contact we have with a global network of thousands of senior executives across the financial services industry.

We plan to use this blog for frequent and informal interaction, to share our personal observations about the industry, opine honestly, and engage in discussions. You can expect to find posts about emerging issues, what we are hearing from your peers and updates on our ongoing research. Sometimes you may agree with us, sometimes not. The objective is to engage in serious discussion about serious issue affecting the industry.  We will try to be edgy and thought provoking in our commentary.  By participating and regularly reviewing the blog you get an edge on the competition.  Edge.  Got it?  We want to hear from you.

Our posts can be sorted by category — Business Banking, Retail Banking or Operations (see it over there on the right?). Or, you can read them all by visiting “Home” at the top of the page.

We’re excited to begin the conversation and hope you’ll chime in with thoughts and comments along the way.  It is an exciting time to be in Financial Services.  Lots to do.  So let’s begin.