US Banker articles from February 2009

US Banker archives from February 2009

Pleased to Meet You.(Greetings)(Editorial)
February 1, 2009... Byline: Alan Kline, Editor-in-Chief I'm honored to introduce myself as the new editor of U.S. Banker. When I was invited to take this post, I was well aware of the heavy responsibility it conferred. Across 120 years of publication,...

Is Micro-Finance Ready For its next Big Leap? Microfinance fills an important, though tiny, niche in the U.S. market. In the developing world, however, it's big business with more than 150 million customers. The growth is attracting more profit-oriented capital to the movement, sparking a heated debate over microfinance's future. Is that a good thing or not?
February 1, 2009... Byline: John Engen As the CEO of Accion Texas, Janie Barrera has plenty of lending success stories to tell. There's the Colombian woman in Dallas who launched a translation business, and today counts the likes of 3M and Southwest Airlines...

Community Banks Paying for Bigger Brothers' Sins; FDIC's decision to raise risk-based assessment rates - with premiums doubling - has created rancor amongst community bankers, who believe too-big-to-fail banks should shoulder more burden.(Main Street: Community Banking & Finance)
February 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian Community bankers have many reasons to be pessimistic about 2009. A recessionary economy, a sagging commercial real estate market and deteriorating housing and construction sectors are just some of the hurdles. In...

NSF Fees Pay the Bills But Make Customers Bolt; Customers hate it and bankers don't want to say it, but overdraft is a valuable source of income for financial institutions. Yet bankers need to be careful just how hard they push.(Non-sufficient funds management)
February 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian It's an understatement to say that banks had a rough go of it in 2008; consumers too. And NSF fee income may be rising as consumers struggle to pay their bills, but institutions counting on this rising revenue...

Demand for LOCs Up Supply Is Less Certain; To mitigate risk, companies are turning to letters of credit in droves. Banks may be hesitating to offer the product because of risk concerns. While the product may seem like an anachronism, there's fee income to be made.(letter of credit)
February 1, 2009... As the global economy tumbles downward, as buyers and sellers grow more suspicious that trading partners won't be around a few months from now, the time-honored "letter of credit" is growing in demand. Yet, even though these instruments can be...

PA Community Bank Hits the Gas on Trusts; While it may not be a story that every banker can appreciate, Wayne Bank has benefitted from a natural gas windfall amongst its clients, turning farmers into high net-worth individuals.(dairy farmers financed by community banks)
February 1, 2009... Byline: Howard Stock It may seem like a story straight out of "The Beverly Hillbillies," but it's very real. Previously struggling dairy farmers in rural western Pennsylvania are cashing in on a windfall of natural gas reserves located...

The New Model for Correspondent Banking.
February 1, 2009... Byline: Earl Howell, EVP & COO of Silverton Bank The early history for correspondent services for community banks is a checkered one. But working with their state legislatures, community banks successfully pushed for new legislation...

U.S. Government Data Needs a Redo; Fifty years of atrophy and politicization have left our statistical portrait in shambles. The country needs true numbers now to help guide it through the current chaos and beyond.
February 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Rosta By almost any measure, the American economy entered 2009 in need of a rebuild. One area that sorely stands out among those in need of overhaul that hasn't gotten much attention: the nation's economic statistics. It's...

FISCAL POLICY: Credit Markets Cooler But By No Means Frozen; An analyst questions the crisis mentality.
February 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Rosta Back in September the "financial system essentially seized up and we had a system-wide crisis," Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson told an audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Nov. 20. "Credit markets...

Scene and Heard.(forecasting of financial services)(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... "The game at the moment is very much one of 'Can I get to that person first?'" Andy Jennings, Chief Research Officer at Fair Isaac, on how credit card lenders are offering to settle accounts that have a whiff of going bad. "The Fed...

Capital Reservation.(statistics of capital ratio )
February 1, 2009... Byline: Michael Sisk The industry is in for a major regulatory overhaul, and one area that's getting lots of attention is capital ratios. The conventional argument goes something like this: the failure or forced sale of so many banks...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Brief article)
February 1, 2009... Bank of America announced about 20 layoffs in its so-called "band 1" layer of management at the end of the year, ousting a number of long-time loyalists of CEO Ken Lewis and signaling the lengths to which BofA must go to remake itself as it...

Looking Under the TARP; Congressional and GAO watchdogs have growing doubts about Treasury's controversial rescue plan-from TARP's administration to its intended mission.(Troubled Asset Relief Program)
February 1, 2009... Byline: Michael Sisk When complex projects are done quickly, rarely are they done well. The industry is re-learning this lesson the hard way as government oversight panels finally get up and running and take a closer look at the $700...

Geek Squad: What Obama's CTO Heralds; The proposed high-profile position has bankers and fintech officials hopeful they'll get a greater ally in cybersecurity and infrastructure.(Chief technology officers)
February 1, 2009... Byline: Glen Fest Vivek Kundra seems to have one condition already met for a tech czar's job: he's got a blog. The 34-year-old CTO for the District of Columbia - who at press time was rumored as a leading candidate for the...

Ad Spending Down, Migration May Be Up; Analysts agree that it's going to be a tough year for marketers. Some, though, will try to seize on an increase in demand while others will reallocate those dollars.(Marketing)
February 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian Bank marketing executives have a tough decision to make: On one hand, they need to cut costs due to recessionary pressures; on the other, depositors appear more open than ever to change their banking provider, so...

AD Beat: Liquid Gives Way to Solid At SunTrust; It's been a long time since Americans were savers and not spenders. SunTrust unveiled an ad campaign for those who are looking to make a change in their habits.(Marketing)
February 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian It's been a long time since Americans saved their pennies. Since the start of 2005, Americans saved just 0.5 percent of what they earned, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. But that is changing. Savings...