US Banker articles from April 2003

US Banker archives from April 2003

Correction.(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2003... In the March 2003 issue, USB incorrectly reported that Wade Dokken was named vice chairman of Prudential Financial. Vivian Banta is vice chair of Prudential Financial and head of its insurance division. Dokken reports to Banta. USB regrets the...

Branches, Service and Vernon, Vernon, Vernon.(Vernon Hill of Commerce Bancorp)
April 1, 2003... Get 20 or so retail bankers together these days to talk shop and you get the sense that no one wants to step out of the room, even for a minute or two, for fear they might miss something. Such was the case at a recent dinner hosted by Second...

Identity Theft: Skeletons in the Credit Closet: A growing number of cash-strapped parents are stealing their kid's identity. The debt is piling up.
April 1, 2003... Lisa Barraza's seven-year-old son is a typical youngster-minus one major detail. Since the age of one, he's racked up over $100,000 in credit card debt. How can a grade-schooler apply for credit cards and spend that kind of cash? Obviously...

Hedge Funds: SEC Eyes Conflicts of Interest in the Business: Ongoing probe sparks regulation buzz.(United States Securities and Exchange Commission)
April 1, 2003... THe SECurities and Ex- change Commission may finally be taking steps to regulate the hedge fund industry. Over the past several months, the SEC has been quietly putting together an extensive database of hedge fund information, according to fund...

Hits and Has-Beens.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... What's it mean when high-profile analysts like Diane Glossman of UBS Warburg exit to pursue things like "olympic-level" horse back riding, or Merrill Lynch's Judah Kraushaar jumps ship to relax and maybe write a book? Old pros, riding into the...

Fresh Ink.(banking acquisitions and mergers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... 1. FirstBank NW Corp. will be taking over Baker City, OR-based Oregon Trail Financial Corp, with the pearl of the deal being OTF's primary subsidiary, Pioneer Bank. FirstBank will cough up roughly $74 million for OTF, and says the deal will...

Economy: The Emerging War Picture: Effects on finance depends on how long it lasts.
April 1, 2003... The war with Iraq could cost the U.S. nearly $2 trillion by some estimates, leaving the financial services industry in a quandary over how business will be affected and what to do in preparation for the worst. Yale economist William...

Pipeline.(multiple topics)
April 1, 2003... Scrapping for Small Business For many bankers, it could be viewed as a Valentine's Day bloodletting. Time will tell if the Small Business Administration's regulation revisions allowing credit unions to participate in a lending program will...

Community Banks: Forget Local Rivals. Watch Wal-Mart.: Banks cite greater nonbank threat.(Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)
April 1, 2003... It wasn't long ago that competition between cross-town rivals was what dominated the minds of community bankers. While fellow community banks and credit unions are still the leading competitive threats, small banks are taking note of the rise...

Emerging Markets: American Retrenchment?: Banks shy on Latin America, Asia investments.
April 1, 2003... U.S. banks are pulling back from emerging market investments in the face of increasing risk and economic instability. There's no telling when concerns will lift and commercial bank money will start flowing back into developing countries. "Bank...

A Battle of the Sexes: Marketers Should Pay More Attention to Women.(Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the Largest Market Segment)(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... Marketing to Women: How to Understand, Reach, and Increase Your Share of the Largest Market Segment By Martha Barletta Dearborn Trade Publishing, 253 pages, $23 In the 1970s, Martha Barletta, author of "Marketing to Women," was...

Word Is...: Genteel London, Crass New York. Or is It the Other Way Around?(survey examines cultural differences in banking industry)
April 1, 2003... Anyone who's flown business class between Heathrow and JFK knows the through-the-looking-glass world evoked by endless citations of Shaw or Churchill or Wilde on American and British manners. This holds true for finance as well, when looking at...

Noted and Noteworthy.(bank robberies)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Springfield, MO community banker Aaron Buerge-better known as "The Bachelor" on ABC television-is now again a bachelor but branching out from banking. The 28-year-old Buerge and three friends opened Trolley's Downtown Bar and Grille in...

The Money Trail: Far Away, So Close.(fighting financial structure behind terrorist acts)(case of Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad and Al-Farooq mosque, Brooklyn, New York)
April 1, 2003... Federal officials are touting breakthroughs in the fight against terrorist funding, but rules governing the anti-money laundering campaign are unclear, creating frustration. The FBI case alleges cash raised at Brooklyn mosque Al-Farooq...

Money Laundering: Struggling with the Most Vital Information.
April 1, 2003... It's algorithms against assassins as the battle against global terror drags on. With data exposed as never before and new rules on the way, what's the cost? The 1980s, Kenneth Rijock helped drug dealers stash millions in offshore accounts,...

Outsourcing: One Plus One Makes Three: JP Morgan Chase's John Schmidlin is a believer: jobbing out tech operations can remake a company. The idea is catching on.(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... Outsourcing is in. The competitive pressures of a global marketplace and the rapidly evolving technologies that help keep banks in the hunt has forced executives to look creatively across the enterprise for ways to cut costs while at the same...

If Ever There was a Time To Tout Stability: Banks have always played up being a safe haven for money-a simple, boring message that's suddenly turned compelling from the muckraking on Wall Street. But cynicism is so high that capitalizing on this contrast is a challenge.(Industry Overview)
April 1, 2003... With three years and counting on the back of the bear market, 18 months of scandals and bankruptcies, solid company names vanishing into thin air and stock portfolios in tatters, one might think banks would have figured a way to show a silver...

AD Beat: Putting On the Funny Money Suit: First Tennessee scores another humorous campaign to rival the best and priciest work in the industry, thanks to small but stellar Thompson & Company.
April 1, 2003... Truly funny bank ads are rare, making the batch Thompson & Company cooked up for First Tennessee quite a feat. It dresses people up as dollar bills and shows them burning rubber and skidding through the parking lot and swatting a hornet's nest...

Money in the Classroom: Commercialization or Crafty?: Suzanne Kilcher runs a school savings program at $2.5 billion-asset Hudson River Bank & Trust in New York. The program is a powerful marketing tool aimed at the future.
April 1, 2003... Hudson River Bank & Trust has been targeting kids since 1991 to the mutual benefit of bank and community by teaching the importance of saving money. Its school savings program has 35,000 active savings accounts opened by students from...

Going with the Flow.(Wachovia Bank and Prudential Securities form Wachovia Securities)
April 1, 2003... Wachovia CEO Ken Thompson's deal with Prudential has tongues wagging and rivals paying close attention. The newly combined brokerage, headed up by Wachovia's Don McMullen, nets the bank greater access to trillions of dollars that will pass from...

Will BofA Bite?(Bank of America)
April 1, 2003... Bank of America's looking at midtown New York real estate-large real estate, reportedly in the one-million-square-foot range. BofA's crosstown rival, on the other hand, just cut a deal to add more than 4,000 brokers to the payroll. They'll...

100 Largest Mortgage Banks 2002.(Wells Fargo and Co., Washington Mutual Inc.)
April 1, 2003... The vaunted housing bubble keeps getting bigger and there's no popping. West coast-based mortgage banking leaders Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual are content to profit. While there's no doubt that prices are way past the average consumer's...

Top Originators.
April 1, 2003... At december 31, 2002 (dollars in millions) (part 1 of 2) Origination Volume Rank Organization Name 2002 2001 1 Wells Fargo Home Mortgage...

The Odyssey of Great Southern's Broker-Dealer: Now a full-service broker aiming to be a key player in Missouri, Great Southern has relinquished its broker-dealer operations to a third party, giving it the tools it needs to compete.
April 1, 2003... In pioneer times, people came to places like Springfield, MO, to start over. That spirit is alive and well on the prairie, as evidenced by the unusual saga of Great Southern Bank's brokerage program. The bank itself is a restart, having a...

At Home, Countrywide Says Union Yes: With interest rates at record lows, the AFL-CIO has expanded its union mortgage program to over 13 million potential borrowers. As the lender, Countrywide Financial is looking to pump up its book at minimal risk.
April 1, 2003... Richard and Christa Paul recently decided it was time to buy a new home in Milwaukee, WI. With solid credit, financing was never an issue. But when the couple went to take out a mortgage, they found they were eligible for more than just a low...

Long Island Interloper Goes to Bayridge: In New York City, competition for small business runs the gamut with banks of all sizes crowding the market. Is there room for another from Long Island?
April 1, 2003... Hinsch's is the place for home-made ice-cream and BLTs in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. But you pretty much have to be from there to know about this time capsuled, 40-year-old local landmark. Richard Conti used to get "thrown out of there" with...

Pulling Cash From Your Stocks: Stock loans are providing what seems to be risk-free cash to investors looking to draw liquidity out of their portfolios without leaving their positions in the market. Is it too good to be true?
April 1, 2003... Imagine if an investor could exchange a dwindling stock portfolio for cash without selling a single share of stock. In 10 years, if the economy is booming, you could give back the cash and regain control of the portfolio. If the markets are...

It's Okay to Be Gloomy, Because the Economy's Comatose. But It Won't Always Be So.: In other words, American investments are the place to be, says Nancy Kimelman. Stop predicting when the recovery's going to happen-it only makes things worse-and start looking at the long-term horizon.
April 1, 2003... While the rest of us are perplexed and confused by the economy, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has it pegged: In his testimony before Congress in mid-February, Greenspan described the economy very simply-it is, he said, essentially in the same...

Advertising Contacts.
April 1, 2003... GROUP PUBLISHER Jay Berfas Thomson Media One State Street Plaza New York, NY 10004 Tel: 212.803.8690 Fax: 646.264.6800 U.S. BANKER ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Southeast/Mid-Atlantic Publisher David...

The Nagging Details of Allowance For Loan and Lease Losses: Former banker and retired public accounting firm audit partner.
April 1, 2003... Myth: The larger the Allowance for Loan and Lease losses (ALLL), the more it will protect banks and thrifts from large unexpected loan losses. The facts are that no matter how large the ALLL, it will never absorb any loan losses, except for...