2026 NC School of Banking

Curriculum

Freshmen year provides instruction in accounting, sales, lending, financial management, marketing, compliance, cyber security, leadership and other banking related topics. Read below for details on each course.

Banking 101

Banking 101 is a course that helps students understand the function of the dual banking system, as well as the supervision process for state-chartered financial institutions. In this course, students will learn the regulatory structure for banks and why banks are so heavily regulated. Banking 101 also covers off-site examination tools, types of regulatory exams, the frequency and processes of risk-focused examinations, and the CAMELS rating system.

Becoming a Resource Manager Through the 5 Cs

Consultative selling is dead and solution selling is in the rear-view mirror; in commercial banking today, those old playbooks no longer play. Entrepreneurs are more demanding than ever before, and they have unending financial services options. How can your bank win these customers over and build partnerships that last years, even a lifetime? A new approach, trust-based selling, has emerged that is working at banks of all sizes. This fast-paced session outlines what it takes to build trust through a new concept – the resource manager. Practical tools and takeaways enable your bank to cultivate client relationships at this next level of excellence.

Compliance Management

Regulatory compliance is the strong infrastructure you must build to strengthen and support your financial institution. It is critical that your organization maintain a culture of compliance to manage the risk inherent in banking and specific to your strategic lines of business. Learn about fair lending, UDAAP, privacy, Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Servicemember Civil Relief Act, Military Lending Act and so many more compliance requirements!  We'll make sure you understand the big picture and how to effectively mitigate the ever-increasing risk associated with non-compliance. 

 Cybersecurity

This course will give students an overview of the risk associated with technology and the importance of understanding this risk for operational and management purposes.

 Essentials of Lending

Essentials of Lending is an overview of credit risk management fundamentals for consumer and commercial lending decision-making and portfolio management. We will also take a look at the impact of current changes in the economic environment, customer evolution, regulatory perspectives, as well as information and underwriting tool development. Students will also look at strategies on how to balance the bank’s risk profile with loan growth and profitability.

 Key Principles of Effective Leadership

In this short introduction to leadership, the group will identify and discuss the key characteristics to be a successful leader. Starting with the golden circle, participants will uncover their “why” in order to develop the foundation of their own leadership blueprint. Understanding our personal leadership blueprint will help us to effectively lead and influence others. 

• Characteristics of positive and negative leaders from their past
• Discuss and agree on the traits of effective leaders
• Explore personal values and identify their top five values
• Discuss the golden circle: why, how, and what. Start with "why" to identify their core value.
• Using values and beliefs to lead and influence others. 

 Money & Banking

This course aims to provide the student with an introduction to the role of money, commercial bank operations, and how the Central Bank attempts to control and/or influence monetary policy in the economy. The purpose of this course is to provide a broad understanding of economics, the structure of commercial banks and factors impacting operations, monetary and fiscal policy, the bond market, and the impact of governmental intervention via monetary policy within the United States economy.

Principles of Marketing

The Principles of Marketing course introduces the many aspects of marketing and its role in the financial institution. During this course, you will explore the role of bank marketing and its impact within your organization. You will examine marketing's basic fundamentals, as well as study real-world examples of marketing at work within a financial institution.

The Accounting System and Financial Statement Preparation

The freshman year financial management module is comprehensive in that it takes the banker from a basic understanding of the accounting system all the way through an analysis of the financial statements generated by the system, and then emphasizes the use of the financial information internally. Three integrated sessions are utilized to accomplish these

Sophomore Curriculum

Sophomore year focuses on government relations, finance, managerial accounting, crisis communication, conflict management, motivation and delegation and leadership. See

below for details on each course.

Banking Ethics 

The goal of this course is to provide students with a practical framework for identifying and addressing ethical situations within a banking organization. We will begin with a discussion of ethics in general and then walk through a set of analytical tools. Students will then have an opportunity to put these tools to use through group discussion of practical ethical situations based on real-world examples.

Bank Performance and Valuation

The influences on valuation in the banking space are constantly changing.  This session will focus on the fundamental drivers of valuation and the key performance measures investors use when assessing value. Special attention will be paid to those attributes that management can control, and how perceptions play a role in how an institution is valued.

CAMELS Case Study

During this very interactive session, participants will have an opportunity to assess CAMELS component areas and assign ratings using a report of examination. The class will be divided into small groups so that each group can work directly with a risk management examiner and take a deeper dive into one of the CAMELS areas. Participants will also work in small groups to determine appropriate enforcement actions and propose solutions to the issues they identify.  

Conflict Management

Managing conflict is an essential and ubiquitous part of leadership. In fact, given the current business trends toward workforce diversity, globalization, and joint ventures, how managers from different roles and cultures deal with conflict is an increasingly important predictor of organizational success. In this topic, leaders will assess how they manage conflict, what guidelines to use, and when to use each conflict management strategy.

Finance II

This course will provide an overview of corporate financial planning tools, including the evaluation of firm performance, projection of key financial statements, and a discussion of financing policies. The course includes hands-on work and a case study.

Maximizing Your Leadership

Using your personal style awareness to build more effective relationships, self-awareness is the cornerstone of effective leadership. Understanding your preferred behavioral tendencies and how they impact other’s perception of you is key to be the best leader you can. In this session, you’ll receive feedback on your responses to two brief online surveys that will be sent out to you the week prior.


Motivation and Delegation

We cannot achieve success alone. Leaders need employees to perform at high levels consistently. While intelligence is important, having motivation is equally, if not more important. In this session, students will understand key motivation concepts and begin to learn how to apply them and use delegation as a key development tool to motivate employees. 

UBPR/CAMELS Overview

This session walks through the Uniform Bank Performance Report (UBPR) for the CAMELS case study to help participants analyze the case study materials, and ultimately to evaluate their own bank’s UBPR. The session also includes a brief overview of regulatory examinations and introduction to the CAMELS case study.

                              Junior Curriculum

Junior year is designed to provide rising middle managers with senior management perspective. Participants work in small teams to manage a bank through a two-year period using a sophisticated computer simulation program involving asset/liability, capital allocation, investment, business development, lending and human resources management decisions.

Asset/Liability Management I

Dr. Davis starts this session by defining interest rate risk. He shows the class how to measure it and strategies that a bank might use to change it. Dr. Davis will speak on the embedded options that exist in a bank’s balance sheet, and how a bank must deal with them. Finally, he analyzes the various strategies a bank might use to reduce interest rate risk.

Asset/Liability Management II

Dr. Davis will build upon the lesson learned in the first session.

Bank Executive Simulation

BankExec is the industry’s most powerful teaching tool for developing the banking expertise of newly hired managers and expanding the skills of experienced bankers. This widely-used educational tool simulates the activities of a mid-sized commercial bank with exercises in asset/liability management, capital formation and dividend policy, gap analysis, accounting and tax planning, marketing and resource allocation, forecasting and planning economics, pricing bank services, strategic analysis, policy formation and forecasting, organizational structure, and much more.  Working in teams, students manage a computer-simulated commercial bank. They analyze then respond to changing banking and economic conditions to see the effects of their decisions on situations that closely parallel today’s banking industry. These sessions are led by experienced executive-level regulators and bank officers, who help provide a real-world perspective to the simulation.

Enterprise Risk Management

This course will provide an overview of the concept of Enterprise Risk Management (“ERM”) as it applies to community banks, and will assist students in a better understanding of the basics of a sound ERM process. The course will include a discussion of best practices, overall governance of the ERM program, and regulatory expectations with regard to ERM. The session will also describe the major individual risk areas that most community banks face and discuss various methods and tools that the management team can use to communicate the bank’s risk profile to directors, examiners, and auditors.

Investments

The class will start by covering why an investment portfolio is needed at any financial institution. The instructor will discuss the size a portfolio should be, and the investments that might be made by a portfolio manager. The instructor will also discuss policy limitations that govern a portfolio, and what kind of reporting should be maintained and distributed to different stakeholders.  Finally, a discussion of total return methodology will be discussed.

An Introduction to Situational Leadership

The most effective leaders seek to understand their followers and match the needs of the follower to the leadership style they each need in order to be successful. Not everyone is on the same intellectual, maturity, compliance, or motivational level. Different people are motivated by different things, and this must be considered if one is to be a great leader. When followers receive the leadership they need, when they need it, their performance accelerates, work passion increases, and your organization thrives.  Using the principles of Situational Leadership participants will explore the four levels of leadership, when and how to use each style. 

• Telling
• Using principles of effective communication such as "I" statements to convey the message and build confidence
• Selling
• Using influence tactics and diffusing resistance to encourage others to buy into the message and actions required
• Participating
• Coaching tools to encourage growth and ownership, leading to higher confidence
• Delegating
• Discuss the benefits and pitfalls of delegation

                       Senior Curriculum

Senior year is designed to provide rising middle managers with senior management perspective. Participants work in small teams to manage a bank through a two-year period using a sophisticated computer simulation program involving asset/liability, capital allocation, investment, business development, lending and human resources management decisions.

Bank Executive Simulation

BankExec is the industry’s most powerful teaching tool for developing the banking expertise of newly hired managers and expanding the skills of experienced bankers. This widely-used educational tool simulates the activities of a mid-sized commercial bank with exercises in asset/liability management, capital formation and dividend policy, gap analysis, accounting and tax planning, marketing and resource allocation, forecasting and planning economics, pricing bank services, strategic analysis, policy formation and forecasting, organizational structure, and much more.  Working in teams, students manage a computer-simulated commercial bank. They analyze then respond to changing banking and economic conditions to see the effects of their decisions on situations that closely parallel today’s banking industry. These sessions are led by experienced executive-level regulators and bank officers, who help provide a real-world perspective to the simulation.

Banking, Public Policy & Advocacy

Remember Schoolhouse Rock and I’m Just a Bill? In this class, NCBA President & CEO Peter Gwaltney will go beyond how a bill becomes law and will delve into the current state of politics in Washington D.C. and how it affects the business of banking at a practical level. The recent elections had a dramatic impact on the balance of power in the administrative and legislative branches of our government, and all of the federal regulatory agencies have new leadership. What does all of this mean for banking today and in the future? Banking is a heavily regulated industry. As such, it is important for bankers to be engaged in advocacy to influence public policy. Students will learn how to get involved in advocacy efforts on behalf of the banking industry. 

Bank Performance and Valuation

The influences on valuation in the banking space are constantly changing. This session will focus on the fundamental drivers of valuation and the key performance measures investors use when assessing value. Special attention will be paid to those attributes that management can control and how perceptions play a role in how an institution is valued.

Economic Update

In this session, Dr. Davis will look at the present situation with the national and state economies. He will pay particular attention to consumer spending, wage and salary growth, employment, and housing. Dr. Davis will also discuss the relationship between economic growth and bank performance. Finally, he will speak on economic policy and the outlook for the economy.

Strategic Planning

During this session, students will discuss the importance of developing, implementing, and sustaining banking strategies to help differentiate their financial institution from the competition. Discussion includes pulling from bank and non-bank case studies and applying the information to our current competitive landscape.