Colorado’s incoming banking commissioner, Steve Strunk, plans to visit all 107 state-chartered banks and trust companies over the next 12 months and restore surprise examinations.
“You have to go into the bank; you have to talk to the people; you have to go into the credit files,” Strunk said in an interview Tuesday.
Strunk, who starts his new job April 12, said he plans to focus special attention on struggling banks after reading every bank-examination report in his first 30 days.
Strunk, 59, fills an opening created when longtime Commissioner Richard Fulkerson retired in November 2008. He replaces state Securities Commissioner Fred Joseph, who was acting as the interim banking commissioner.
“The position is one that is very intellectually challenging and requires someone with a great deal of experience and strength of character to take over,” he said.
Strunk most recently oversaw Kirkpatrick Bank’s Colorado Springs location and before that was an executive with First Community Bank in Colorado Springs. He also has worked with Bank of America in New Mexico and with banks in Texas during a career of more than 35 years spent mostly in commercial banking.
Strunk said he has worked closely with regulators in developing internal- compliance programs and has lengthy experience restoring troubled banks to health.
He called criticisms that the state has appointed a fox to oversee the henhouse “laughable.”
“I am one of the toughest and most disciplined bankers in the industry,” he said. “I don’t put up with any bankers that conduct their banking activities outside of bank regulation.”
His experience in acquiring banks also has made him knowledgeable of ways that bankers try to make things appear better than they are.
Asked why banks fail, he points to two reasons: poor management and greed.
Because banks rely on deposit insurance to operate, they must be regulated, but Strunk said regulation must be consistent and not bend to political pressure. “Being granted or maintaining a bank charter is an economic privilege, not a capitalistic right,” he said.
Strunk said he couldn’t comment specifically on the $1 billion failure of New Frontier Bank in Greeley in April but added that he would work hard to prevent a repeat.
