Broad majority of Wisconsin bank CEOs believe economy is ‘good’ — but none say it’s ‘excellent’

A broad majority of Wisconsin banking executives believe the state economy is strong, but enthusiasm is down compared to past surveys.

That’s according to a new end-of-the-year survey from the Wisconsin Bankers Association, conducted between Nov. 19 and Dec. 12. It showed zero percent of banking CEOs believe the economy is “excellent” and 79 percent say it’s “good.”

The same share of executives said the economy was good in the middle of the year, but 7 percent said it was “excellent” at that time, the survey shows. For comparison, 7 percent said the economy was “excellent: and 76 percent said it was “good” at the end of 2024. At least 5 percent of bankers have been describing the economy as “excellent” in each survey since at least the end of 2022.

Rose Oswald Poels, president and CEO of the Wisconsin Bankers Association, said the survey results show a “steady economic outlook” but “not an overwhelmingly great economic outlook.” She said some sectors of the economy are doing well, while others are struggling. 

“I think that’s true whether we’re talking about businesses or whether we’re talking about individuals,” Oswald Poels said. 

A slimmer majority of banking CEOs, 55 percent, expect Wisconsin’s economy to stay roughly the same over the next six months — while 28 percent believe the economy is going to grow over the next six months and 17 percent believe it will shrink, the survey shows.

Oswald Poels said the positive factors in Wisconsin’s economy — like low unemployment, a strong manufacturing sector and strong consumer spending — helped contribute to most bankers feeling the economy will remain steady in the next six months. 

But concerns around housing affordability, particularly for low-income individuals, and uncertainty around tariffs have contributed to less than one-third of bankers believing the economy will grow in the next six months, she said.

“I think that uncertainty will continue into next year, which gives, I think, the bankers a little bit of pause,” she said. “But at the same time, 28 percent are expecting the economy to grow, which is certainly a little higher than what we’ve seen in the last couple of survey responses six and 12 months ago.”

At the same time, 72 percent of bank CEOs believe interest rates will fall over the next six months, the survey shows. 

While most of the responses came in before the Federal Reserve announced a rate cut on Dec. 10, Oswald Poels said bankers, anecdotally, expect two more rate decreases next year.

Over the next six months, residential real estate loans were the only loan category most CEOs, 59 percent, predicted would see demand grow, according to the survey. For business, commercial real estate and agricultural loans, a majority of bankers said demand would stay the same.

Oswald Poels said residential real estate lending has been lagging behind the last couple of years due to high interest rates combined with the high costs of building new homes. That’s made home buying, especially for new homes, more expensive.

She said expectations that interest rates will come down over the next year, along with rate cuts earlier in 2025, have helped “lead to the optimism that we’re going to see pretty nice growth in residential real estate lending.”

She also said banks are seeing consumers use credit cards a little more this year than they have in the past few years, but deposit levels at banks have remained strong.

Heading into 2026, Oswald Poels said financial fraud is one of the biggest things banks are trying to keep an eye out for. 

Last week, the Wisconsin Bankers Association, citing data from the Federal Trade Commission, said Wisconsin consumers and businesses lost more than $107 million to fraud in 2025, including $32.8 million in losses in the third quarter of the year.

Oswald Poels said technological advancements, including in artificial intelligence, have helped make fraudster phone calls more believable, often posing as police, IRS agents, bank employees or family members.

“When someone’s calling or texting you and demanding you to act instantly, everybody should just pause at that point,” she said. “Then hang up the phone and contact people, whether it is the bank separately with a number you would normally use, or contact family members if that’s the urgent situation that the bad actor is trying to get you to act.”