US Banker articles from August 2003

US Banker archives from August 2003

Rants and Raves.(Comments about community bank ratings)
August 1, 2003... Community Bank Rankings Could you please advise me as to the data criteria USB uses for the "Top 200 Community Banks" (July 2003)? Bridge Bancorp trades on the OTC Bulletin Board. Is this considered publicly traded? If it is, why was...

Why Rankings and CEO Styles Mesmerize Execs: Those who don't fess up to following such things are either not concerned with performance metrics or are simply fibbing. My guess is it's the latter.
August 1, 2003... Corporate America's fascination with rankings and CEO management styles is a curious thing. Most executives are mesmerized by one or the other-or both. And those who don't fess up to following such things are either not concerned with...

Money Fights: How Much is Too Much?: A million here, a million there...(Calpers will start publicizing list of 10 to 15 companies that overpay executives )
August 1, 2003... Calpers, The market-moving pension fund covering California's government workers, is turning up the heat on companies that overpay the suits. And even though it's mum on possible suspects, Citigroup is singled out by other industry watchdogs...

Scene and Heard.(Comments from two executives at different firms)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... "They never rose to the level of what I'd call a trend. They were only a flavor of the day." Jay Cooper, chairman of the entertainment practice at law firm Greenberg Traurig's Los Angeles office, on the passing fancy of music royalty...

Web innovation: Banks Have Far to Go on Accessibility for the Blind: Wells' new Web site puts it at the forefront.
August 1, 2003... While big banks are making strides to become more accessible to the blind by rolling out talking ATMs and Braille and large-print materials, most banks make it nearly impossible for them to manage their finances on the Internet. Wells Fargo and...

Hits and Has-Beens.(Sanford Weill, Chairman and CEO of Citicorp, will relinquish CEO duties to Charles Prince)
August 1, 2003... Dealmaker extraordinaire Sanford Weill's reign is in its twilight. Chairman and CEO since Citicorp merged with his Travelers-he initially shared chief executive duties with John Reed-the 70-year-old will relinquish CEO duties to Charles Prince,...

FreshInk.(Boston Private Financial Holdings plans to buy First State Bancorp; notes other news)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... 1. Boston Private Financial Holdings announced plans to buy First State Bancorp, the holding company for $174 million First State Bank of California, for $26.6 million in cash and stock. The deal is expected to close by the fourth quarter and...

Exchange Worries: NYSE Workers Printed: First major exchange to do so, mum's the word.
August 1, 2003... When the New York Stock Exchange finally starts inking its employees' fingerprints for background security checks, it will be the only exchange getting regular play on the morning radio that goes that far. Tokyo, Frankfurt, London-no...

Pipeline.(Bugbear virus contains domain names of 1,300 financial institutions and can copy both corporate and user passwords; notes other news)
August 1, 2003... Bugbear the Sequel On-line bankers beware, a variant of last October's Bugbear virus detected in June contains domain names of 1,300 financial institutions and can copy both corporate and user passwords. Security experts seem to believe...

Word Is...: We Just Proved You'll Read This Ad. For Just $100, Your Name Here.(Finance industry is second to none when it comes to marketing paraphernalia)
August 1, 2003... If you've ever stepped foot on a trade show floor-and you have, because there is nobody lucky enough to dodge, say, the BAI crush forever-you know that the finance industry is second to none when it comes to marketing paraphernalia. That'd be...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Possessions of financial services firms)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... Finance interests have bought their way into strange possessions before. There's J.P. Morgan, which organized the firm running the Titanic. The Bank of England owns a yacht omura owns 5,000 pubs. But while rich bankers may own...

It's Easy Money: $2 Billion Worth: By finding enough unspent cash at a federal agency to buy a good-size Manhattan apartment, Sue Kelly shines and the public sector is its clunky old self. But is it that simple?
August 1, 2003... On a recent summer day, like many before her, New York congresswoman Sue Kelly strode into a conference room exclaiming over a pile of found money. In this case Kelly, a Republican member of the House Committee on Financial Services and...

Technology R&D: A Room with a View: Fidelity's usability lab-formally known as Fidelity Center for Applied Technology-puts function to the test. While other R&D efforts in the financial community have fizzled with the dot-com bust, FCAT is going strong.
August 1, 2003... Conventional wisdom once said the best way to draw attention to an important message on a Web page was to put the information into a colorful, eye-catching graphic at the top of the screen. That's what officials at Boston-based Fidelity Center...

Forget Click Rates ow View-Throughs Matter.: Still a small percentage of overall marketing budgets, Web ads are gaining in popularity as financial advertisers become more educated. Rich media is upping activity.
August 1, 2003... Finance spends more than any other sector on Web ads and partnerships, shelling out more than $1.2 billion for on-line advertising in 2002 and $430 million through April of this year, according to TNS Media Intelligence-CMR. As companies pour...

Top 10 On-Line Advertisers In Financial Services.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
August 1, 2003... January thru April 2003 Brand Expenditure ShareBuilder $16,475,920 ScoTTrade $13,758,418 HarrisDirect $12,487,808 Ameritrade, Inc....

AD Beat: Home Equity Loan? Think Mini Me.: One look at its latest ad campaign for home equity loans and it's clear straight-laced Fifth Third is loosening up. But the $84 billion bank doesn't stray far from its product-only sales pitches.
August 1, 2003... Conservative Fifth Third Bank is loosening its necktie, injecting humor and levity into its straight-laced image with a new advertising campaign featuring actor Verne Troyer, widely known for his role as Mini Me in the Austin Powers flicks. ...

Branching Out Means Treating Lobby as Premium Sales Area: Signs and posters in bank branches can hurt or help marketing efforts. Darryl Breckenridge, advertising director at Hancock Bank, weighs in with some advice on how to increase sales by decreasing clutter.(Interview)
August 1, 2003... That Treasure Troll with hot pink hair perched on your computer monitor could be jeopardizing marketing efforts in the bank branch. Gulfport, MS-based Hancock Bank found through a recent branch revamp that too many signs, non-marketing oriented...

So, Where're Ya Headed, Mac?: Ok, there are 12,000 yellow cabs in Gotham and only one belongs to HSBC. But if you beat 'dem odds, it's free.(HSBC Bank)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2003... HSBC Bank wants to prove it's in good with New Yorkers. In keeping with its tagline, "The World's Local Bank," the global giant is running free cab service for customers in Manhattan. Designed for buzz over efficiency, there's only one...

Coast to Coast: There are as many ways to mint money as grains of sand on the beach. In the mid-Atlantic, Skip Schoenhals and his WSFS team do it with savvy sales moves and new focus. In Michigan, Flagstar's moving mortgages. In the shadow of the Golden Gate, David Payne's got his business bank Westamerica humming and he's looking to buy. They lead the USB 100 of mid-tier banks.
August 1, 2003... The choice is, there is no choice. "Thirteen years ago we were practically out of business," Skip Schoenhals says. He'd sold himself out of a job in Michigan and come to a thrift on the eastern seaboard which had broken on the rocks of...

Top 100 Publicly Traded Mid-Tier Banks: Banks & thrifts with assets between $1 and $15 billion. Ranked by 3-year avg. ROE.(Illustration)
August 1, 2003... (part 1 of 3) Market Total Value Assets Institution ($M) ($000) 1 WSFS Financial Corp....

Hitting Cycle: Citizens CEO Larry Fish runs his $68 billion bank like a ball club, mixing the art of dealmaking with a healthy dose of home-grown talent. With 20 mergers under his belt, organic growth making for 40 percent of its rise in deposits and Royal Bank of Scotland as its parent, can the official bank of the Phillies keep playing the whole field?(Citizens Financial Group)
August 1, 2003... Larry Fish has learned plenty over the past decade about what it takes to successfully buy and absorb a bank, including persistence, secrecy, marketing and quickly winning over new employees. The formula has proven so successful that his...

Doing Good by Doing Well: As Third-World NGOs Morph into Full-Fledged Banks, Profits Are Swelling-and Global Banks are taking Notice.(Non-government organizations)
August 1, 2003... As a growing number of Third World non-government organizations become full-fledged banks and tap higher entrepreneurial loans for the globe's poor, one surprising fact has not escaped global retail banks: the consistently high profits of...

Small-Bank Top Dogs Still Getting Top Dollar: Community bank CEOs see their paychecks going up, but they still make bupkis compared to their Fortune 500 brethren like William Harrison Jr. ($9 million). The upside: their job market is a lock.
August 1, 2003... If you're boss at the bank, pay is going up. But if you're the guy guarding the door, lean times mean a leaner wallet. Community bank CEOs saw handsome pay increases over the past couple of years even if some of their subordinates didn't,...

Restoring Smiles a Tough Job For Financial Advisors: After the heady days of the late 1990s when rosy research was the rule, burned individual investors are wary of the advice they get. Investment pros are working hard to meet the challenge of inspiring confidence.
August 1, 2003... At the core of the relationship between an investment advisor and client is trust, making the past three years especially trying as conflicts of interest on Wall Street manifested themselves in everything from absurdly rosy research reports...

Business Owners Are Putting Out with Plastic: Most small business owners use credit cards, the majority of which are personal ones. Competition for small business credit cards is mounting, and though prospects are big, risks remain.
August 1, 2003... Brian Esparza and his partners have been hard pressed to get small-business credit cards for their landscaping firm. "If you don't have a lot of money or collateral, you have to use cash and personal credit cards to get things started because...

The Man Who Fell to Earth: Music royalty bonds, once the media darling of an otherwise staid debt securities market, are hurting. Is it a one-off or a major miscalculation?
August 1, 2003... David Bowie and David Pullman are linked forever in the financial world-they're tied together with paper sold six years ago, securities to be paid off with royalties from future sales of glam-rock records. The star deal brought star attention...

Army of the Well-Heeled Expect Duck$ in a Row: As the number of very rich people increases, it represents an attractive, albeit demanding, client base. Financial advisors must be willing to provide more personal service.
August 1, 2003... Despite the horrendous equity markets in the United States and most of the rest of the world, the number of high-net-worth individuals actually rose last year and their financial wealth grew at an even faster rate, according to two separate...

Better Times are Ahead, but Recovery is Impeded by Soft Labor Markets: "Disturbingly" soft is how David Resler sees employment conditions, which must soon improve to ensure the continued expansion of consumer spending. Other factors, though, suggest the economy is on the mend.
August 1, 2003... For the third time in the last four quarters, real GDP growth in the first quarter failed to reach two percent, raising concerns the economy may be slipping back into recession. Indeed, with employment still declining, the National Bureau of...

Within Every Successful Brand Customers See Themselves.
August 1, 2003... It wasn't that long ago that bank customers felt an emotional bond with their bank. Banks fit so snugly into our lives that we trusted bankers to listen to us, know us as people and even see us as more than a number. That time and place...

Advertising Contacts.
August 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 ...