As the industry continues to resolve its credit and capital problems, many banks and credit unions are now shifting their focus to improving efficiency. And, the numbers confirm it’s a good time to focus back on efficiency.

Article originally posted in the ABA Banking Journal by leading community bank and credit union consultant Ken Proctor, Managing Director of Risk Management with Abound Resources.

From our experience working with hundreds of banks and credit unions, here are the top six most common business continuity mistakes:

After yet another marathon strategic planning session with yet another client struggling to come to terms with the crushing weight of compliance costs, the slow death of consumer banking, the weekly assault on the mortgage business and fears of next month’s guidance (and likely attack) on overdraft programs,  I found myself staring at the ceiling in a Hampton/Fairfield/Holiday Inn in Middle America.

I didn’t exactly go out on much of a limb two weeks ago in my analysis of the Fiserv acquisition of OSI when I predicted more vendor consolidation. But this week’s FIS and ACI acquisitions do highlight my point about how payments are driving everything in the bank IT systems world right now. Payments are driving all of the innovation, and payments will drive most of the acquisition activity in the bank technology vendor (and credit union technology) space for a while.

The Mortgage Bankers Association recently published its prediction for 2013 mortgage origination activity, and it raises some concerns for community banks and credit unions.

In the worst kept secret in banking, OSI finally found a buyer. Fiserv paid $850 million for the struggling core bank provider that burst onto the scene in the early 90’s with the first “open” bank core system. OSI never quite found their niche as banks were reluctant to go real-time, though they eventually found success as a largely thrift and credit union core provider.

The article Small Banks Taking Another Swing at Cutting Costs, shared our bank survey highlights that three of the five biggest priorities in 2013 for the chief executives of small and midsize banks involve bank efficiency. Those priorities included improving technology utilization, streamlining workflow and a broad need to "become more efficient."

After releasing the results of our annual community bank 2013 survey which highlights how bank regulations have dampened bankers’ optimism for the new year, we were notified of two similarly troubling surveys.

AUSTIN, Texas (January 10, 2013) –Abound Resources, a leading credit union consulting firm and alliance provider of CUNA Strategic Services, released the results from the recent survey of credit union executives. The results highlight that credit union CEOs are much more pessimistic going into 2013 than they were going into 2012.  The primary driver of the pessimism is an increasingly difficult and unpredictable regulatory environment.