BayFirst is practically ran as two companies, the SBA division and the community bank. Simply put, the latter is often treated as an afterthought. Although the bank continues to expand its geographic footprint, there doesn't seem to be a clear vision for growing the customer base outside of trite generalities (e.g., "digital banking," offering "community space" in local offices, etc.). The term "fintech banking" is often loosely thrown around, but this is entirely illusory (the bank does not have any actual live fintech relationships, which is a good thing given their existing infrastructure and the regulatory environment).
The organizational divide is also noticeable as it relates to resource support for the community bank's back-office functions. The risk and compliance areas have clearly been historically neglected, and now it's "too little, too late" as this $1.2B org tries to correct systems and processes that have been in place since the bank was 2 branches and $200M.
It seems many managers and even execs have learned on the job within this org, and there doesn't appear to be much of an emphasis on servant leadership, which in turn appears to have detrimentally impacted the morale of many teams.
Although the SBA side of this org is certainly a well known name, the stagnant share price and struggle to provide value in the post-Covid/PPP era is an overall accurate reflection of the rudderless vision of this organization.