Nicholas Calcanes - How to Use Credit as a Business

Nicholas Calcanes has worked in many different positions with Bank of America and many other financial companies throughout his career. His most recent position is Chief Information Officer, which involved, among other things, working on wholesale credit services for large corporations. Many people use credit cards for their personal finances, but they may not be aware of how to use credit effectively as a business.

Businesses should approach credit differently than individuals should. Businesses do not need to worry about ‘building credit’ in the same way that individuals do, but instead can use credit to help keep business running if there are any cash flow issues. Because business finance is cyclical in nature, this is often very necessary to keep a business running. Business credit lines are actually much easier to deal with than a traditional credit card, because they typically do not have the fees and minimum payments that a credit card would have.

For small business owners, it is very important to set up a business line of credit sooner rather than later. Lenders often use your business credit to assess the health of your business, and using personal credit for business operations can be detrimental to both your own credit score, as well as your businesses’ credit. Just as with a personal credit card or credit line, it is important to make payments on time and monitor all charges to ensure a good credit score for your business.
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Nicholas Calcanes - What is Wholesale Credit?

Nicholas Calcanes has worked in the financial industry for his entire career. He has served in many positions (most recently as the Chief Information Officer for Bank of America), and has worked on many different projects involving credit, specifically wholesale credit. While many people have credit cards and are aware of how they work, they may not be as aware of wholesale credit.

Wholesale credit stems from the concept of wholesale banking. Wholesale banking is the business of banking for large corporations or other banks. This term also encompasses most international finance. Wholesale banking is very different from retail banking, which focuses on small businesses and domestic clients. The subset of wholesale credit focuses on the process of borrowing between these large institutions.

A company that offers wholesale credit solutions will handle the credit for a large corporation at a lower rate than a traditional retail bank account. This is because the large corporation will be handling very large sums of money frequently, and the fees and interest rates normally applied to checking accounts would be very impractical and risky for transactions of this size.

Working in the wholesale banking business can be much more complicated than traditional banking services. Often, employees of merchant banks will have to deal with currency conversions and very large and complex transactions. Nicholas Calcanes has worked with many large banking companies, including Bank of America and Ally Financial, and has dealt with many wholesale banking transactions throughout his career.

Nicholas Calcanes - Understanding Why Data Management is Important

Nicholas Calcanes is the Chief Information Officer at Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Having studied economics and government at college, Nicholas Calcanes started working as Purchase and Sales Coordinator at First Union Brokerage, and later as a Registered Representative and District Agent with The Prudential. He has worked with data management and explains why data management is important for every business.

Data is Important

Understanding how data interrelates with the business will increase your ability to link information, build strategy, and increase performance in the business. Many businesses use a variety of information in their decision-making process; however, this information is only valuable if it has been fed to the system. When decision makers analyze data in order to make decisions, and the information is not relevant, the problem lies at the entry point where the information was entered into the system. Small discrepancies can make a huge impact to a company’s performance, which is why it is extremely important that proper data management solutions and tools are put in place.

One of the most important things in data management is in identifying what data is required and where it is located. When the data is identified, it has to be extracted and prepared to be sent to the data management or storage facility. The transferred data has to be in a usable format so that it can be accessed by decision makers and used in the business. Nicholas Calcanes recommends making sure that your data is relevant and that it is regularly updated.
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Nicholas Calcanes - How to Make Employee Training Interesting

Nicholas Calcanes has been working at Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina for several years. He has held various top positions and has managed several teams. His leadership skills have helped him in training and motivating his team to take their performance to the next level. Training is important for all bank staff. While it is important, sometimes training sessions can become quite a drag. Nicholas Calcanes offers a couple of training tips banks can use though these training methods done necessarily convey information, it helps make training an enjoyable experience.

Make Training Fun

If your training sessions are dry and dull, you will notice that it will become difficult for your trainees to remember concepts and theories. Make your training sessions practical and they will remember what they learn, and soon you will see better results in their performance at the workplace. You will also need to change the pace of the training sessions to keep their interest level high.

Encourage Participation

If you expect your trainees to just sit and listen during the training sessions, they won’t learn much. However, on the other hand, if you encourage participation it will make the training session interesting. Engage your trainees to participate in the learning process. Encourage group participation, and allow trainees to speak freely because learning happens when thoughts, ideas, and feelings are involved.

Build Self-Esteem

If you are conducting a training session for your employees, they will like to know what’s in it for them. While most training programs are designed to make more money for the firm or company, you will need to let employees know how they could benefit from the program. It would work in your interest to create a win-win situation to build your employees self-esteem and self-worth.

Nicholas Calcanes recommends making training programs interesting for your employees.

Source: ​http://trainingtoday.blr.com/employee-training-resources/How-Conduct-Effective-Training-Session
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Nicholas Calcanes - How to Be an Effective Project Manager?

Nicholas Calcanes grew up in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida and went to West Virginia Wesleyan College on a football scholarship. He graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in both Economics and Government and built a successful career in sales with The Prudential, before moving over to work at Bank of America. Nicholas Calcanes is currently the Chief Information Officer at the Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Working at the bank, he has successfully managed several projects and offers these tips for new project managers.

Nicholas Calcanes

Be a Team Player

If you want your team to succeed, you will need to be an effective team player. You will need to learn how to recognize your team’s talents and optimize their expertise. Be open to asking your team for help when you need it, in some cases when you are unable to come up with a working solution to a problem, one of your team members might have the right solution. Don’t just be the project manager, be a team player.

Understand Your Project Management Tool

If you are using a project management software, you will need to understand how it works. You will need to optimize the software and encourage your team to participate in using it to the maximum. If you are overlooking the project schedule, you will need to go over it over and over again to ensure that things are going according to plan.

Take Responsibility

As the project manager, you will need to take full responsibility for the project you are working on. It is your responsibility to oversee every detail of the project. While you don’t have to do everything yourself, you most certainly need to delegate responsibility to your team and oversee things.

Nicholas Calcanes was the Chief Risk & Compliance Officer and directed all aspects of compliance and operational risk programs at Bank of America.

Nicholas Calcanes - Tips For Business Process Improvement

Changing the processes that your business operates by can be a fairly intimidating task. After all, if the supposed improvements don’t perform in the manner that you expect them to, you may find yourself with a less effective system than you previously had. Nicholas Calcanes has been involved with business process improvement at many different levels during his career and offers the following advice.

Understand the Problem
Processes should not be fixed just for the sake of doing something, so it is important to completely understand the issue before you start considering improvements. Fully analyze your processes to pinpoint the places where things go awry and then consider what you can do to solve those issues.

Do You Need Technology?
Technology has allowed for increases in effectiveness, but only when it has been used to improve upon slower processes. Consider what the process is and whether a technological solution will simply lead to the process being completed incorrectly at a faster rate. Don’t just go for the tech option just because it’s there.

Obtain Support
Once you have analyzed the existing processes, you are going to need to obtain support from senior management. This means being able to adequately explain why an issue exists and what your proposed solution can do to solve it. If you don’t have the confidence of the senior management team, this suggests that your proposed solution is not up to the standard required.

Give It Time
Nicholas Calcanes feels it is important to point out that all new business processes take time to become bedded into the culture of a company, so you need to understand this and exercise a little patience. You need to wait for everybody to understand the new processes completely before you can judge how effective they truly are.
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Nicholas Calcanes - Qualities A Good Leader Should Have

Nicholas Calcanes has been responsible for assembling and leading project teams throughout the course of his career. As such, he is aware of the qualities that a good team leader needs to possess in order to keep the group on course and ensure the project is delivered to expectations. The following are all important qualities.

Clear Communicator

You must be able to communicate effectively with all team members, identifying the overall goal of the project and the key milestones that must be reached to attain that goal. You must also be able to offer constructive criticism that does not damage the confidence of team members, while still clearly highlighting areas of concern.

Transparency

Trust is often an underrated aspect of successful team management, so it is important that you are transparent in your aims and honest in what you tell your team. Employees are more willing to work under somebody who takes personal accountability and is doing what they do for both their interests and those of the company.

Positivity

Staying positive regardless of the situation will ensure that other team members approach the project with the same attitude. Instead of taking a defeatist attitude when an issue arises, encourage the team to work together to come up with a solution. Be sure to offer praise where it is deserved and do what you can to keep morale high.

Be Hands-On

Nicholas Calcanes believes that personal accountability in any line of work is important, so by taking a hands-on approach demonstrates your own commitment to the project and further inspires the team. Delegate where needed, but don’t allow the idea that you have lost interest in the project seep into the team mentality.

Nicholas Calcanes - What is Credit Transformation?

Credit transformation can be a difficult concept to understand at first, but it is an important part of a range of banking processes. Nicholas Calcanes tries to keep things simple when approaching the concept, with the following being an explanation that boils the concept down to the basics.

Credit Intermediation

The credit transformation process is one types of what is known as the credit intermediation process. It is intended to be a dynamic process that allows for repeated tweaking in order to endure that it matches up to the current conditions of the market and its continued evolution. Other forms of the credit intermediation process include size transformation and maturity transformation.

Who Does Credit Transformation Work?

Credit transformation is directly linked to the bank’s credit risk, and will usually be used when the bank wishes to invest in securities that offer a potentially higher yield while also having a lower credit standing than the bank’s existing funding instruments, such as stocks, bonds and derivatives. In essence, this makes it a method for banks to gain returns by using credit mismatches between their liabilities and assets.

As an example of the process in action, consider that you have a high-end borrower and a mid-range borrower. A successful credit transformation will see you issue liabilities to your high-end borrower, while lending to the mid-range borrower. This allows the bank to adjust to irregular market activity, in addition to taking advantage of opportunities that arise with the bank’s previously defined funding instruments.

Nicholas Calcanes recognizes that credit transformation allows a bank to better manage its credit risk, ensuring that it is more able to meet all obligations.

Nicholas Calcanes - Making Effective Decisions

When heading a team in any project, it is important that you are able to make decisions that are effective and serve the overall aims of the team. Nicholas Calcanes has worked at the head of an array of teams since 1996 and offers the following guidance for those who are having a little trouble.

Effective Advice

In order to make the right decisions, you need to have relevant information at hand. As such, each member of the team must be capable of providing accurate reports relating to the areas they have responsibility for, allowing you to analyze the current situation before making decisions that will affect the future direction of the project.

Use the Phone

Email is an extremely effective tool, but when you need to make a quick decision it can often hamper the process. Instead of sending an email and waiting, simply pick up the phone and speak directly to the person who can help you make your decision. This will allow you to ask follow up questions immediately, instead of over the course of a number of hours.

Step Away

If a decision is giving you trouble, step away from the project for a moment and give yourself a little time to relax. Head out for lunch or take a short stroll to clear your mind. This will allow you approach the decision afresh and may help steer you away from making the easiest choice if it is not the right one.

Understand Your Team

Nicholas Calcanes understands that every member of a team brings something different, so it is important to understand how their skills will help them in their role. This, in turn, allows you to make decisions that ensure you take full advantage of the diverse skill set at your disposal.