US Banker articles from August 2005

US Banker archives from August 2005

Rants and Raves: HSAs: Service, Not Product.
August 1, 2005... I read the article in your June 2005 issue concerning health-savings accounts with great interest ("For the Enterprising, Health-Savings Funds Are Anything But Medicine"). Blackhawk is a small, regional bank with assets totaling approximately...

Editor's Note.
August 1, 2005... In U.S. Banker's annual performance ranking of community banks (July 2005), Smithtown Bancorp, based on Long Island, NY, was ranked No. 2 with a three-year average return on equity of 24.8. The magazine incorrectly reported that the bank had a...

With the Whistleblower Provision, No One Wins: The SOX provision provides protection to a whistleblower who has been discharged, demoted, suspended, threatened, harassed or discriminated against by his employer. What it doesn't give him is another life.(David E. Welch of Bank of Floyd)
August 1, 2005... Establishing the intent of regulation is one thing; applying that regulation to rectify a specific situation is another story. No one knows this better than David E. Welch, former CFO of Virginia's Bank of Floyd, who is the first person...

Security Breaches: Banks Flounder in Muddy Data-Regulation Waters: Is new interagency guidance that clear?
August 1, 2005... Institutions of all sizes are struggling to map out the boundaries of regulators' new customer-notification guidelines on data breaches. The provision on consumer harm, for instance, only requires notice if actual misuse of sensitive personal...

Scene and Heard.(banks' data security)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2005... "That should be left up to the marketplace." Steve Bartlett, CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable, on whether banks should provide customers with access to free credit reports for one, three or five years after a bank's data breach. ...

M&A Activity: European Deals Press Onward: Rejections of constitution may disrupt activity.(mergers and acquisitions)
August 1, 2005... It is summertime and cross-border mergers are heating up the European landscape, despite the recent rejection of the European Union constitution by two nations, which may threaten integration and reform of the financial sector in the short...

Hits and Has-Beens.(appointments)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2005... Synovus has named Richard E. Anthony CEO and president. Former CEO James H. Blanchard, who becomes board chairman, retires in 2006. Washington Mutual has hired David C. Schneider as president of its Home Loans Division. He had been...

FreshInk.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2005... 1. In a bombshell announcement, Bank of America said it will buy credit card issuer MBNA for $35 billion in cash and stock. The bank, already one of the "big three," will become one of the largest issuer of credit cards, with 40 million...

Pipeline: Cost of SOX Compliance Continues to Escalate.(Sarbanes-Oxley Act)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2005... Total compliance costs for Sarbanes-Oxley averaged $116,800 annually for banks with less than $15 billion in assets, compared to $937,500 for those with more than $15 billion in assets, according to the Risk Management Association. The vast...

As Purcell Leaves Building, MS Gets Big Mack Attack.(Morgan Stanley)(John J. Mack)(Philip J. Purcell )
August 1, 2005... Talk about sweet, sweet redemption. Former Morgan Stanley president John J. Mack-and former CEO of the firm in its pre-merger days-was warmly invited to take the helm of the investment bank as chairman and chief executive late last month, four...

Noted and Noteworthy.(banking industry's news)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2005... Americans trust the military and the police more than they do banks, which ranked No. 3 among nine options, according to a recent Gallup Poll. The military was trusted "a great deal" by 42 percent of those polled and "quite a lot" by 32...

Business Gets On Diplomacy's Fast Track: U.S. banks are finally acknowledging that America's image abroad is bad for business. But is it best to change minds through government or corporate outreach efforts?(Karen P. Hughes appointed as undersecretary of State for public affairs and public diplomacy)
August 1, 2005... Now that master manipulator Karen P. Hughes has agreed to become the Bush Administration's mouthpiece overseas, can she do more than the business community to stem the tide of anti-Americanism that is tarnishing corporate America's reputation...

Data Management: Climbing Another Ladder Rung: Customers want speed and have no patience for inconsistency among channels. That's reason enough for banks to fully combine their silos once and for all.
August 1, 2005... Evolution can be tricky. Over the years, banks spawned various species of IT and software systems-each of them adapting to their specific environments and helping their departments survive. But the species were never allowed to mate. "The...

Should Your Next Branch Boast a Unique Design?: Although unconventional branches have been around since the turn of the new century, few banks call them an unqualified success. But there are promising experiments.
August 1, 2005... Unconventionally designed banks like those of Washington Mutual and Umpqua Bank may have won a lot of praise, but whether they are more successful than conventional branches at drawing higher deposit share remains an ongoing question. "There is...

AD Beat: MasterCard Targets Payment Executives: The credit card giant is taking on American Express to capture a lucrative, but often overlooked, market: corporate payments. But companies gotta pay their bills, too.
August 1, 2005... MasterCard is making a bold move to capture what's often considered a dull part of the marketplace-corporate payment products, upping its spending in the area by 46 percent in 2005. With volume growth in corporate cards estimated at 20 percent,...

Banks Need to Be Proactive In Dealing with Data Breaches: In backing a federal bill to set a noti1/2cation standard after breaches, the Roundtable has its members in mind. But it also wants to protect ID-theft victims.(Interview)
August 1, 2005... Steve Bartlett, president and CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable, believes banks have an innate responsibility to protect customers' personal data-but there should be limits. The Roundtable is working with legislators in both the...

The Long Lonely Battle of David E. Welch.
August 1, 2005... A tiny Virginia bank and its former CFO are at the center of controversy raging over the new corporate whistleblower provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley law. But David E. Welch, who twice was ordered reinstated after being fired in 2002 for...

Best In Middle: Mid-tier banks always have had an inferiority complex. While smaller banks offer the personal touch, the big guys now are stealing their best customers: small business.
August 1, 2005... More than ever, mid-tier banks are experiencing the "middle child" syndrome: They have to struggle for attention while their older, bigger siblings-and younger, more nimble ones-find their place in the industry. The middle stratum is...

Right At Home: Banking is a Family Affair: An Oregon bank is thriving, thanks to five generations of the Proctor-Stuchlik family. Through good times and bad, the family has steered Clackamas County Bank to profitability.(Company Profile)
August 1, 2005... Randy Proctor remembers picking up cigarette butts 50 years ago in the parking lot of Clackamas County Bank in Sandy, OR. Today, he is the president of that same bank. Inspiring? For sure, yet his is not a rags-to-riches story. Turns out he was...

Clamping Down on Rising Fraud Of Demand-Draft Checks: The vulnerabilities of remotely created checks are no longer in the shadow of credit-card fraud. As the Fed mulls new rules, banks wonder why there's a need for this payment method at all.
August 1, 2005... While check fraud attempts have increased dramatically in recent years and law enforcement snares more white-collar criminals, an obscure avenue of deception is catching the eye of the bad guys. So-called remotely created checks, also known...

Entrepreneurs Remain An Underserved Demographic: Successful small and medium-sized business owners can be lucrative clients. Their key concern? Succession planning, an area advisors often overlook. And therein lies the opportunity.
August 1, 2005... Entrepreneurs represent an underserved wealth-management customer segment that only recently has landed on banks' radar screen. Wachovia, for example, is in the initial stages of establishing a wealth-management unit aimed specifically at...

Why Policymakers Should Relax-And Learn to Respect the Stock-Market Bubble: Since stock-market prices signal business managers to invest, bubbles can mislead managers into investing when it is not pro1/2table. True, this only becomes apparent after the bubble bursts.
August 1, 2005... On the face of it, it's perplexing that variations in the stock market should effect the overall economy. After all, on each side of a stock-market transaction is a buyer and a seller. Following such a transaction, the 1/2rm can continue to...

U.S. Banker Advertising Contacts.
August 1, 2005... GROUP PUBLISHER Jay Berfas SourceMedia One State Street Plaza New York, NY 10004 Tel: 212.803.8690 Fax: 646.264.6800 OUTSIDE THE U.S. Please contact the Publisher U.S. BANKER ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES ...

The Bottom Line on CIP Guidance.(Customer Identification Program)
August 1, 2005... The federal regulatory agencies have released interagency guidance to assist the banking industry in complying with the Customer Identification Program requirements under Section 326 of the USA Patriot Act. This guidance is not intended to...