Their primary revenue stream was, once upon a time, net interest income, but these days due to the extremely low interest environment and alternate sources of funding the revenue stream is more weighted towards fees
There are still banks who are trying to do this. You can rephrase it as, "lending money to winners." Even better if you can lend money to an underdog winner, enabling them to borrow even more in the future. Community banks are now left with only the underdog borrowers, as the low hanging fruit is swept up easily by the megacorporation banks.
Metacomment: geeks who believe they have outmathed a financial firm should ask themselves "Are financial firms likely to be bad at math?" and "Are financial firms incapable of hiring their own geeks?"
This is the POV of my wife, who manages underwriting: Community banks are having problems hiring the "A-Students" and "B-Students." This means that employees either make more mistakes, or need more rigorous support through custom software, which community banks can ill afford, and where the big megacorporation banks can handily outcompete them.
There are still banks who are trying to do this. You can rephrase it as, "lending money to winners." Even better if you can lend money to an underdog winner, enabling them to borrow even more in the future. Community banks are now left with only the underdog borrowers, as the low hanging fruit is swept up easily by the megacorporation banks.
Metacomment: geeks who believe they have outmathed a financial firm should ask themselves "Are financial firms likely to be bad at math?" and "Are financial firms incapable of hiring their own geeks?"
This is the POV of my wife, who manages underwriting: Community banks are having problems hiring the "A-Students" and "B-Students." This means that employees either make more mistakes, or need more rigorous support through custom software, which community banks can ill afford, and where the big megacorporation banks can handily outcompete them.