US Banker articles from February 2002

US Banker archives from February 2002

Point of View: DESIGNER-MADE EARNINGS REPORTS: The greatest danger is fooling oneself.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... One important reason the United States has been a magnet for portfolio investments is its first-rate financial reporting. Now the reliability of financial statements is coming under question. The immediate concern, of course, stems from...

CITIGROUP THRIVES, WHILE CHASE SHRIVELS.(Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase and Co.)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Citigroup is king-of just about everything financial. For one thing, it has unseated Merrill Lynch & Co. from its 11-year reign as the nation's lead underwriter. But more important, it was able to produce handsome profits despite...

Consumer Debt Getting Scary.(consumer credit grew by 14.5% in November 2001)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Fifth Third CEO George Schaefer often says, "trees don't grow to the sky." That may be true with trees, but it doesn't seem to be so with consumer credit. Total consumer credit in November soared by $19.8 billion, to $1.65 trillion, the...

Loose Change.(includes several brief articles concerning financial services companies)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Good News, But Also Frightening The good news is that the consumer price index grew by only 1.6% last year, the lowest since 1968. But what is worrisome is that the inflation rate dropped to minus 0.2% in the last quarter. Let's hope that...

HOUSEHOLD GETS RAPPED.(Household International Inc. settles lawsuit in California)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... California has locked a ball-and-chain around Household International's leg in punishment for cheating the finance company's customers in California. Household claims it made a mistake. That's what the ailing Providian claimed when the...

What if Bank One Bought Bear Stearns?(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Sean Ryan, the former Bear Stearns bank stock analyst who now is an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, a securities brokerage firm, is reporting rumors that Bank One is considering buying Bear Stearns. This rumor probably is as baseless as...

NO TEARS SHED.(Sanford I. Weill to sell property and casualty business of Citigroup Inc.)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Among the traits that makes Sandy Weill such a brilliant executive is that he doesn't form permanent attachments, at least none in business. He rid himself of Jamie Dimon, with whom he had had a father-like relationship, and who had been...

Total Return Deceptive.(Keefe Bruyette and Wood's KBW 50 Index)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Total return, which includes dividends and stock appreciation, often can make a bad bank look good and a good bank look bad. That's what happened last year, based on Keefe, Bruyette & Wood's KBW 50 Index, which ranks each of the nation's 50...

Letters To The Editor.
February 1, 2002... To the Editor: We Slipped Throughout my 26-year career, I have avoided being vocal on gender issues and focused on excelling in my role as a CEO. However, I am stunned by the Bank Notes cartoon - "CEO THOUGHTS" - in your January...

ARGENTINA BURNING; FLEET, TOO.(FleetBoston Financial Corp. delays announcement of fourth-quarter results)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... The laissez-faire-ists had taken over Argentina's inter-national policy, and ultimately received what history should have predicted-a mess. Riots in the streets, middle-class people going hungry, a government toppled. And FleetBoston Financial...

Chat while you bank.
February 1, 2002... At the Retail Delivery Show in Anaheim, technologists were bubbling with ideas about how to change automation in banking. Lots of attention was given to big ideas, like super-ATMs and wireless banking devices. But some of the simplest...

CRM-in-a-Barn.
February 1, 2002... CRM software vendors are not hard to come by. A bank needn't look far to find dozens of companies promising to help retain customers and improve the bank's ability to cross sell. But how can a banker really know if a particular vendor's...

ATMs LEARN NEW TRICKS.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... It's not always true what they say about old dogs and new tricks. Some dogs just take longer to warm up to the idea of a new trick. Well, trying to get old automated teller machines to learn to talk has been no easy task - much to the...

VIFI Sells Out for $51 Million, Only $3.75 Million in Cash.
February 1, 2002... It's a new year, but the same story for small Internet banking vendors - survival of the fittest. Consolidation is continuing, and the big boys keep getting bigger. Virtual Financial Services Inc. (VIFI), has agreed to be acquired by...

Diebold triples servicing deal with Bank of America.
February 1, 2002... Diebold has been looking for new opportunities to generate revenue, and representatives have said automated teller machine servicing is one of the ways it would do so. In late December, Diebold went to one of its biggest customers, Bank of...

Download.
February 1, 2002... Euronet Worldwide Inc. will sell DASH, its electronic funds transfer (EFT) network technology to Alltell Information Services...First Tennessee National Corp. has extended its agreement with Data Concepts Inc., and will use "AdQue", Data...

Deposits Grow Despite Drop in Rates: The stock market has driven depositors into the arms of banks, but will this love dissolve if the market comes back?
February 1, 2002... Bank deposits are growing despite the lowest interest rates since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. Between a volatile stock market and the cataclysmic events of Sept. 11, the public appears willing to forego earning high interest in return...

At Smaller Banks, a Sigh of Relief.
February 1, 2002... Community banks, which have much to gain from rising deposit levels, have struggled to hold the line against plummeting interest rates. Banks with less than $1 billion in assets have seen their net interest margins narrow, from about 4.7%...

Learning from Disaster.
February 1, 2002... CEO J. Herbert Boydstun of New Orleans' Hibernia Corp. stems from about as traditional a background as an American banker can. A native of Louisville, Mississippi, he received his BA from Ole Miss, and his MBA from LSU. He started his career as...

Advertising Budgets Escape the Knife: Bank marketers are spending as much - or more - than ever on retail ads despite an economy that's in the dumps.
February 1, 2002... The United States is in a recession, which might lead some to assume that banks would slash their advertising budgets. And the shock from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks remains high in peoples' thoughts, another factor which might lead banks...

BANK TRUST ASSETS DEFY MARKETS: Despite the decline of stock markets in 2000, bank trust assets rose to a massive $19.2 trillion.
February 1, 2002... Banks managed to increase their trust assets in 2000 despite a 10% drop in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, and a 39% drop in the Nasdaq. The increase wasn't strong - but it was an increase. According to figures supplied by SNL Securities,...

RANKED BY TOTAL TRUST ASSETS.
February 1, 2002... Largest 100 banking institutions with trust assets in 2000 (part 1 of 2) Rank 1 State Street, Boston 2 Bank of New York, New York 3 Mellon Financial, Pittsburgh 4 Northern Trust, Chicago 5 J.P. Morgan Chase,...

RANKED BY number of trust ACCOUNTS.
February 1, 2002... Largest 100 banking institutions with trust assets in 2000 (part 1 of 2) Rank 1 State Street, Boston 2 Mellon Fincl., Pittsburgh 3 J.P. Morgan Chase, New York 4 Wells Fargo, San Francisco 5 FleetBoston...

The Ginnie Mae Alternative.
February 1, 2002... Some enemies of Fannie and Freddie see hope in allowing Ginnie Mae to securitize high loan-to-value conventional mortgages. If it happens, it would be a coup for GE Capital Mortgage Insurance. It's no secret that for years mortgage bankers...

QUICK-RETURN CRM.(customer relationship management)
February 1, 2002... There are ways to improve customer relationship management without spending huge amounts of money. McKinsey consultants argue that CRM should be more mining of profits than of data. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - the targeted...

U.S. Banker Advertising Contacts.
February 1, 2002... GROUP PUBLISHER Jay Berfas Thomson Financial Media 11 Penn Plaza, 22nd floor New York, NY 10001 Tel: 212.631.1462 Fax: 212.564.9832 U.S. BANKER ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES SouthEAST/MID-ATLANTIC David...