BayFirst Financial Corp. (f/k/a First Home Bancorp, Inc.)
Climate Impact & Sustainability Data (2022-01 to 2022-03)
Reporting Period: 2022-01 to 2022-03
Environmental Metrics
ESG Focus Areas
- Environmental
- Social
- Governance
Social Achievements
- Issued the Company’s Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) Policy statement and began work on its first ESG Report, confirming the Company’s commitment to its corporate responsibility.
Climate Goals & Targets
Environmental Challenges
- Disruptions in the residential secondary market and a reduction in mortgage loan volume.
- Slower than anticipated pace of the Company’s return to traditional SBA 7(a) lending.
- Transition back to SBA 7(a) lending and reduced reliance on fintech partners for SBA loan generation has not impacted revenue as quickly as anticipated.
Mitigation Strategies
- Took steps to right size our residential lending team and overall expense structure.
- Continued to invest in our future by recruiting SBA and residential production teams while continuing to advance our digital transformation to position ourselves for future profitability and leverage our existing infrastructure.
- Took various actions which will improve net interest income for the remainder of the year, and tactically reduced our workforce to reflect the shift in our business model.
- Reduced headcount in the first quarter of 2022 by 65 with 62 of those from the Residential Mortgage Division.
- Bolstered future SBA loan production with the establishment of a nationwide SBA lending team in the first quarter 2022, with 6 new SBA lenders added to the team.
- Continued to make significant investments in our technology platform designed to enhance the customer experience, bring new customer opportunities to the organization, and create operational efficiencies which allow us to scale without significantly increasing personnel.
- Added two large residential loan production teams in mid-April which added five Loan Production Offices to our Residential Mortgage Division and is expected to increase residential loan production volume once the teams are fully integrated.