Through the use of highly qualified instructors and a challenging curriculum, the Virginia Bankers School of Bank Management is designed to provide a multidimensional educational experience in banking. Through completion of three one-week summer sessions and eight home study problems, students will develop a range of skills that should both enhance current performance and qualify them as candidates for advancement.

The School is held at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. The University, with its wide respect in the national business community and beautiful grounds designed by Thomas Jefferson, provides the ideal setting for this learning experience. 

Employing lectures, case studies, home study problems and peer study groups, the School provides a vehicle for each student to experience comprehensive learning. 

The faculty is a blend of the best from the banking, professional and academic worlds. 

Admission Requirements

For admission, an applicant must: 

• be employed by a VBA member bank; 
• have a college degree and two years banking experience, or a high school diploma and five years banking experience;
• fulfill the accounting requirement (see below)
• be recommended by the bank’s CEO or a senior officer. 

Applications will be considered by the School Admissions Committee using the above criteria. Applicants not admitted will be pre-approved or encouraged to apply the next year assuming they meet the admission requirements. Registration materials and an invoice for tuition will be sent to applicants after acceptance into the school.

Enrollment for the first-year class is limited to 72 students.

Accounting Class Requirement:

The VBA’s Accounting Primer will be required for all students unless the student’s current role has them in an accounting function OR the student completed a college level accounting class within the past five years. 

The VBA will be offering virtual training that will satisfy the requirement for students who need the accounting course in mid/late June 2025.

2025 School of Bank Management Application

Bankers interested in applying for 2025 Bank School session should submit an application by the deadline, March 31, 2025. The application for new incoming students will be available in early 2025.

Rising second and third year students will receive registration information in the spring of 2025.

If you have any questions about the program, please contact Kristen Reid.

Tuition, Room and Board

Tuition for the 2025 Bank School resident session is $1,595.  Tuition does not include lodging and students will be sent the hotel reservations link with their registration materials. The VBA has arranged room blocks at three hotels with the average price/night of $198, plus taxes and fees. It is each student’s responsibility to make their reservation/lodging arrangements. Registration information will be sent out to all students in early May.

If you have any questions about the program, please contact Kristen Reid at kreid@vabankers.org.

Curriculum, Home Study Problems & Bank Exec

Curriculum Overview

The curriculum is designed to provide students with a broad range of skills and knowledge, including:

• Specific skills in the functional areas of banking
• Advanced commercial lending and asset liability management
• Communications and marketing strategies
• Ability to solve problems, work in teams and make decisions in a managerial setting
• An understanding of the changes in payments systems and technology
• The importance of risk management
• An understanding of organizational behavior

Home Study Cases and Problems

Between the on-campus sessions, Bank School students complete eight home study problems, four after each of the first two years.  The home study problems reinforce many of the concepts learned during the on-campus sessions and give participants practical and hands-on analysis of real-world banking situations. Each of the assignments requires research and the preparation of a paper based on the research.

Timely and accurate completion of the home study problems – with a passing grade – is required for graduation from the school. In accordance with our Bank School Honor Code, students must work independently on all home study problems.

BankExec Simulation

Along with challenging courses, the school also offers a BankExec Simulation. This phase of the school allows third-year students the opportunity to make decisions acting as senior officers of a bank. Working in teams and in a virtual environment, students make operating, lending and pricing decisions for eight fiscal quarters that influence bank profitability and bank stock prices. At the end of the week, each team will also prepare a verbal presentation.

Course Catalog

FIRST YEAR

Opening Session: In this introductory course to your Bank School experience, you will learn about the school and your responsibilities over the next three years. Additionally, you will receive and have the opportunity to review your DiSC profile and develop a base understanding of the different communication style as defined by DiSC. Through a series of interactive activities, you will learn how to work with a variety of different personality types making you a more effective communicator, both professionally and personally.

Organizational Behavior: This course explores human behavior in the workplace. During the week, the class will discuss how employee attitudes, levels of motivation and personalities impact daily interaction as well as the drivers of employee satisfaction.

Economic Environment: Taught in a highly interactive fashion, this course features a discussion of the influence that monetary and fiscal authorities have on national income, employment, inflation and balance of payments. The course also reviews current economic conditions, and recent Federal Reserve Policy announcements.

Ethical Decision Making: This course will provide bankers with a values-based process for making decisions and shaping the bank’s culture. In these interactive sessions, we will explore trust, accountability, and other elements associated with ethical and unethical behavior in the banking industry.

Commercial Banking: This course will explore the key elements of successful commercial lending activities and the impacts of a commercial loan portfolio on commercial banks. Topics will include financial leverage and the loan transaction, the commercial lending process with specific focus on risk mitigation, credit analysis considerations with detailed focus on financial statements, key ratios, and cash flow to support quality loan decisions. Borrower debt levels, the economic impacts to loan portfolios, and business life cycles impacts will be explored relative to financial performance and profitability of the commercial loan portfolio.

Strategic Marketing: During this course, you will develop an understanding of the process of developing a strategic marketing plan in an everchanging marketplace, the challenges facing the banking industry today and the value of brand development in the strategic marketing process. Additionally, you will discuss the evolution of the customer and how a bank’s marketing message needs to evolve in order to stay relevant in today’s market.

Bank Financial Management I: During the Bank Financial Management I course, you will develop a basic understanding of a bank’s financial statements and ratios, explore liquidity and funds management strategies, and learn key factors driving a bank’s financial performance.

second year

Performance Management: Being regarded as a good manager can take you a long way in any organization. Conversely, being viewed as a weak manager can be somewhat limiting to a career. This course will provide the practical tools and methods needed to effectively lead and supervise others to maximum performance.

Effective Negotiations: This course equips bankers with a practical process to use in influencing others and negotiating agreements, both inside and outside the bank. Students will use examples from their own banks in identifying interests, developing workable options and conducting real life negotiations.

Bank Financial Management II: The Bank Financial Management II course will build off the basics you learned in Bank Financial Management I and will cover balance sheet management, interest rate risk, how interest rate risk can impact banks, and the regulatory requirements for managing interest rate risk. The course will also provide a primer on managing the financial components of a bank using the BankExec simulation. Students will participate in a mock ALCO meeting and will also have the opportunity to receive advice from third year students on BankExec.

Technology, Payments & Cybersecurity: Technology now touches every aspect of banking. To lead a bank effectively and confidently into the future, it is critical that one can leverage and manage technology in a rapidly changing environment, separating hype from reality and aligning the bank’s technology plans with its strategic goals. This class will help students learn the strategic application of technology in a banking environment, how the payments system is evolving, and the importance of risk management and cybersecurity, in specific banking areas and enterprise-wide.

Credit Portfolio Management: This course will explore the function and impact of key risk management controls necessary to support commercial lending and credit risk management activities of commercial banks. Topics will include the historical causes of bank failures, the credit related risks assumed by commercial banks, and the function of key risk controls relative to asset quality and bank profitability. Approaches and techniques to examine the key risk management controls will be explored with specific focus on managing the loan portfolio and the commercial loan decisioning process.

third year

CAMELS Ratings: During this session, students will review the CAMELS Rating System used to assess the Safety and Soundness of all banks and outline the common risk trends most prevalent today in the financial services industry. Additionally, students will participate in a conversation comparing and contrasting common performance metrics for community banks in Virginia, the 5th District and the nation.

Asset/Liability Management: This course introduces students to the risk to the bank’s income statement and balance sheet when interest rates change. The concepts of rate sensitive assets and rate sensitive liabilities will be studied. In addition, the course investigates the possibility of earning losses that can result from interest rate changes. Finally, students will study policies and procedures that may be able to reduce the danger of earnings losses in a volatile interest rate environment.

Deferral/Cancellation Policy

Please contact Kristen Reid (804) 819-4731 with questions regarding deferral or cancellation.