US Banker articles from April 2004

US Banker archives from April 2004

Rants and Raves.(Jerry Grundhofer)
April 1, 2004... Grundhofer's Slick Legacy? First, I thoroughly enjoy U.S. Banker and look forward to receiving it. Your articles are timely, informative and engaging. As a former employee of Firstar Bank in Milwaukee (pre-Jerry Grundhofer), I could...

Service, Scale and Vernon: Talk of Many Bank Towns: Eventually, it all came back to Vernon. So why all the "Hillabaloo?" A 39 percent, five-year annual deposit growth rate, for starters. Hill also claims 100 percent new store success.(CommerceBancorp.)
April 1, 2004... It's not often in business that an entire industry is defined by the contributions of one individual. Think Steve Jobs at Apple (and later Pixar), Sam Walton at Wal-Mart, Bill Gates at Microsoft and Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com. In banking,...

Bonds: Pittsburgh Staggers Into April. Chin Up, No Choices.: Will dueling planners get steel city off junk list?
April 1, 2004... With last month's tab on $870 million in debt safely paid, the troubled city of Pittsburgh's next hurdle comes in a few weeks as officials try to steer away from a fiscal meltdown. One of two state-appointed oversight panels is due to...

Scene and Heard.
April 1, 2004... "Banking is not fun for people. It ranks up there with a proctol exam." Bill Cooper, chief exec of TCF Financial, on the need to improve the consumer experience. "If teaching paid anything, I'd be a teacher." Brian Hearden, branch...

Risk Management: Banks Looking for Europe Oasis Find More Risk: A massive fraud, a few bad loans and millions lost.
April 1, 2004... U.S. banks could be facing a new level of risk these days as the economy continues to globalize and prompts new lending relationships from various parts of the globe. Money-center banks and many corporate borrowers continue to push into...

Hits and Has-Beens.(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Citigroup has promoted three high-level executives even higher within its global corporate and investment banking group. Alan MacDonald has been named chief operating officer of global banking, formerly vice chairman of Citibank. Alberto Verme...

Fresh Ink.(banking industry)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... 1. North Fork Bancorp agreed to buy GreenPoint Financial in a stock deal worth $6.3 billion, creating the 16th-largest bank in the United States. The acquisition will bring together North Fork's commercial business and Greenpoint's successful...

Disaster Recovery: What Good is a Dormant Bank?: The Fed is proposing one for back-office functions.
April 1, 2004... The Federal Reserve is pushing ahead with plans to create a "dormant" bank to be ready to step in and help with back-office functions in the Treasury market should it become necessary. The new bank, tentatively dubbed NewBank, will be...

Pipeline.
April 1, 2004... More Phishing in Finance New phishing attacks jumped 52 percent from December to January and the financial services sector was hit the most, according to a monthly report by Tumbleweed Communications. Phishing attacks involve...

Big Business: The Poster Child Of a Society Under Too Much Pressure.(book: The Cheating Culture )(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... The Cheating Culture by David Callahan Harcourt, Inc., 353 pages, $26.00 It's hard to believe the financial services sector is living up to its reputation as a bastion of conservatism and safe-keeping when the first two examples in a...

Birmingham Boasts Scrushyvision, Sponsored by Alamerica Bank.
April 1, 2004... It's a television show hosted by a man under indictment in a $2.7 billion accounting fraud, featuring as guest a former state supreme court justice tossed from his job because he refused to remove a two-ton rock monument dedicated to the Ten...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Banking industry frauds)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... In the pines and high country of central Oregon, they're still trying to dig out from winter storms a few months ago that tore across the Cascades. Adding up the costs for the transportation department means 90,000 cubic yards of sand,...

The Big Bad Bond Boogaloo: Orange County once proved that it's not so bad to go bust, if you're rich. Argentina's about to prove that it's not such a bad idea to crash out if it's on a huge scale, aggrieved bondholders say. The Argentines see it differently.
April 1, 2004... Not since the days of bad-boy soccer star Diego Maradona has Argentina kept the world's attention so rapt, and with such complex images...well, no. That's probably the wrong sport to use. Because come the end of April in Buenos Aires,...

Identity Theft: Banks Count Losses as Fraud Numbers Climb: Banks are often overlooked when ID fraud occurs. With so much focus on consumers, there's little public attention paid to the significant costs to financial companies.
April 1, 2004... ID fraud is becoming more than just a nagging headache for consumers, 27.3 million of whom the Federal Trade Commission says have been victims in the last five years. The problem is morphing into a throbbing migraine for financial firms charged...

Cyber Security: E-Mail Gets a New Envelope: New York Life, Putnam shield retirement statements, but experts say it's only a matter of time before hackers target e-mail.
April 1, 2004... E-mail is at the heart of almost every ugly electronic security story that pops up these days, everything from fraud to ID theft, and wealth managers like New York Life Investment Management and Putnam are not about to let consumer...

Payments: Another Try at Rapid Clearing: A new system from DTCC quickens the process, sparking new talk about straight-through processing.
April 1, 2004... The Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. has begun implementing a massive new computer system that it says will enhance the clearing and settlement process for all stock trades in U.S. markets. DTCC officials say the inventory management...

Bank One, Starbucks Get Java Lovers to Load Up: Called the 'next growth engine' for payments, prepaid cards like Duetto can lead to new revenues streams, greater brand reach and more customers for banks.
April 1, 2004... A funny thing happened when Starbucks replaced its paper gift certificates with magnetic stripe gift cards in November 2001. Many recipients would spend the gift amount on their venti Sumatra lattes and scones and then, instead of tossing the...

AD Beat: This is Your Father's Internet Bank: Brand play is a conservative game in finance, which makes it intriguing that an established holding company would take over the name of an Internet bank.
April 1, 2004... Alliance Capital Partners has assumed the name of its Internet banking subsidiary, EverBank, an unprecedented move in financial services that proves just how far Web banking has come. Alliance Capital Partners of Jacksonville, FL, adopted...

No Doubt About Debit, This Plastic is Popular-and Growing: Despite Wal-Mart's win against Visa and MasterCard, Bank One's Dave Cohen expects debit card use to continue gaining ground-at least for now.(Bank One Corp.)(Interview)
April 1, 2004... If Wal-Mart intended to quash the debit card revolution, the court's decision in its favor isn't helping to spur an exodus of merchants from the scene. Bank One's Dave Cohen, product director of retail marketing, doesn't foresee that happening....

Should a Bank Be a Store?: Going retail is all the rage. But World Savings' Marion Sandler says that good branch design can't be quantified. It just is.
April 1, 2004... Until just after World War II, bank architecture was fortress architecture. Back when the greatest challenge in bringing customers through one's door was convincing them that a bank account was safer than stuffing cash in a mattress, architects...

Everybody Wants to Rule the World: HSBC has focused on the well-heeled client for more than a century. Now the london-based behemoth is finding that Going, ahem, Downscale Can Be profitable, Too.
April 1, 2004... Don't tell HSBC it can't be the No. 1 bank on the planet. The London-based bank's perennial runner-up status-just behind Citigroup-has only whetted its ambitions to become the globe's top consumer finance provider. Its secret weapon? Household...

Culture Clash: Nearly a decade after the last merger wave, dealers sharpen their pencils in the wake of an economic downturn and look to make combinations. Is that really such a good idea?
April 1, 2004... Financial companies are feeling a surge in the urge to merge, as one analyst puts it, with executives made heady by the Bank of America move into New England and Bank One chief Jamie Dimon's pending move back to New York. The day of the big...

Leaders by Deal Value: Bank & Thrift Mergers and Acquisitions thru December 31, 2003 Ranked by announced deal value*.(Illustration)
April 1, 2004... Rank Firm Announced Deal Number Value ($million) of Deals 1 Morgan Stanley 53,303.80 3 2 Goldman, Sachs & Co. 1 ...

Last 3 Years at a Glance: Bank & Thrift Mergers thru December 31, 2003 Excludes Hostile/Unsolicited and Terminated Transaction.(Illustration)
April 1, 2004... (part 1 of 3) 2003 Advisors position thru Dec. 31, 2003* Rank Firm Announced Deal Number ...

Top Advisors' Fees: Top 25 Bank & Thrift Mergers thru December 31, 2003 Ranked by deal price at completion.(Illustration)
April 1, 2004... (part 1 of 4) Rank Buyer 1 BB&T Corporation, Winston-Salem, NC 2 M&T Bank Corporation, Buffalo, NY 3 NY Community Bancorp, Westbury, NY 4 Wells Fargo, San Francisco, CA 5 PNC, Pittsburgh,...

Leaders by Number of Deals: Bank & Thrift Mergers and Acquisitions thru December 31, 2003 Ranked by announced number of deals*.(Illustration)
April 1, 2004... Rank Firm Number Announced Deal of Deals Value ($millions) 1 Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. 35 11538.1 2 Sandler O'Neill &...

That's Not Muzak in the Lobby. It's Chin Music.: After being a Met, Angel, Astro and Ranger, Ryan ducked the athlete's usual second act in restaurants or car dealerships. Meet the flamethrower behind an unusual bank venture.
April 1, 2004... Nolan Ryan's field of dreams lacks Iowa cornfields and weepy ghosts. But it does have "Thirsty Thursdays" dollar-beer promotions and a drive-thru teller window open until noon on Saturdays. Welcome to Round Rock, TX, where Ryan and a group...

Things are Looking, Well, Pretty Peachy [bar]n Georgia: Georgia's looking hot, and it's not just about Atlanta. Observers expect a decent year for mortgages across the country, spurred by adjustable rate offerings and greater demand among immigrants.
April 1, 2004... Out-of-town federal bank examiners visiting Georgia couldn't believe Genevieve Cole's tiny hometown of Hiram was burgeoning. "Our delinquency rate was low. We had so much on the books with real estate, I had to get them in the car and drive...

Top Residential Originators: As of December 31, 2003 (dollars in millions).(Illustration)
April 1, 2004... (part 1 of 2) Rank Organization Name 1 Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, San Francisco, CA 2 Washington Mutual, Seattle, WA 3 Countrywide Financial Corp., Calabasas, CA 4 Chase Home Finance, Edison, NJ 5...

Top Residential Servicers: As of December 31, 2003 (dollars in millions).(Illustration)
April 1, 2004... (part 1 of 2) Rank Organization Name 1 Washington Mutual, Seattle, WA 2 Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, San Francisco, CA 3 Countrywide Financial Corp., Calabasas, CA 4 Chase Home Finance, Edison, NJ ...

If You Talk the Talk, You Don't Need to Walk the Walk: Nor do you have to reach out and touch someone. Some banks are opening specialized centers to dial up new small business prospects. It's an effective way to capture neglected business.
April 1, 2004... The telephone is proving an effective way to gain new small business clients overlooked because they're too small. Wachovia, Key Bank and PNC Bank are among the growing number of firms using bankers to call out the smallest business clients....

Cuanto Es? Was Kostet? What's That Cost?: If a company's stock is getting hammered in the markets and its bonds are getting downgraded, how does a bank view the loans?
April 1, 2004... About a year ago, a risk analyst at a major U.S. bank decided to value his loan portfolio by the prevailing sentiments of the markets. The executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, wanted a method that was "similar to the way bonds are...

Seeking Instant Diversity? Look No Farther.: Exchange-traded funds are growing much faster than mutual funds. They're cheap, they're easy and they're going to out all those closet indexers.
April 1, 2004... When Brian Hearden was helping a 67-year-old customer restructure a portfolio that topped $1 million, he noted a glaring lack of diversity. Offsetting the fact that the customer owned large-cap, bedrock stocks was that he owned only four of...

Nuts Over NAFTA by November. Newsflash?: A decade after Ross Perot brought the great sucking sound into the American lexicon, the deal metrics are still a matter of debate. Sluggish job markets make trade treaties tempting territory to score political points.(North American Foreign Trade Association )
April 1, 2004... As far as political hot potatoes go, it's hard to trump job losses. And with the evaporation of more than two million jobs since President George W. Bush took office, despite an economic recovery in its 29th month, it should come as no shock...

Basel II and Economic Capital.(Accord on the International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards, 2001 (Draft))
April 1, 2004... Capital matters to most corporations in free markets, but there are differences. Companies in non-financial industries need equity capital mainly to support funding to buy property and to build or acquire production facilities and equipment to...