Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, Bankunited
Search every verified Rajinder Singh interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Rajinder Singh, Chairman, President and CEO of BankUnited, discussed the bank's 10-year anniversary and its growth since its founding in 2009, which he described as "the perfect time to start a bank." He stated that "what's good for the economy is generally good for banks" but expressed uncertainty about the business cycle's duration. Singh noted conflicting signals, saying that while the bank's loan book and clients appear healthy, market indicators give "some pause." He assessed that trade disruption would have some impact on South Florida and New York economies but called it "more noise at this point than real trouble." Singh commented on the banking industry's structure, predicting a "barbell" evolution with very large universal banks and highly specialized banks like BankUnited. He noted that the U.S. has roughly 6,000 banks, a number he called "unique," and said consolidation is likely to continue. Regarding M&A, Singh described it as a "secondary strategy" for BankUnited, with the primary focus on organic growth. He observed that recent large acquisitions have not been "rewarded by shareholders," though he noted that two recent "mergers of equals" saw positive stock performance, while cautioning that such deals are "especially hard to pull off." On regulation, Singh said there has been no major deregulation of Dodd-Frank but that the "attitude of regulatory bodies" toward businesses has become "much more reasonable."
“What's good for the economy is generally good for banks, so we've enjoyed it and we hope to keep enjoying it, but the thing that we worry about as a bank is how long will this carry on and where is the end of this business cycle.”
“I think of banking eventually evolving to a sort of a barbell structure of this industry: you're gonna have very large behemoth Universal banks like JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, BFA and so on, and you're gonna have more specialized banks like us which will cater to one or two or three niches and specialize and earn our econ...”
“There are six thousand banks still in America which is kind of unique; no other country has that many banks. Eventually consolidation will happen and you'll end up with a structure where there are very large banks and highly specialized banks.”
“When we look at our loan book and our clients, we feel very encouraged that everything is good, but when we look at Bloomberg screens and what's happening in the marketplace, there are signs that give us some pause.”
BankUnited CEO Rajinder Singh joins CNBC's "Closing Bell" team to talk about the bank, earnings and his economic outlook.
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