US Banker articles from January 2004

US Banker archives from January 2004

Rants and Raves.
January 1, 2004... On Matters of Power The enormity of what you did with the issue finally hit me more squarely, and the reaction that I have received-not only on a personal level of recognition, but what you did to encourage so many other women was...

What to Expect When You Least Expect It? Name It.: If players felt, at times, like they were driving in park last year, take heart: 2004 is sure to be the year the industry stops asking so many questions and gets back to business-real business.
January 1, 2004... The tarot card readers and psychics have folded their tents for 2004. Last year saw a parade of corporate do-no-gooders, bloated, off-their-game regulators and you've-got-to-be-kidding politicians wrapped in American flags. It's not a stretch...

Raising Capital: Bank Venture Could Deal Mashantuckets a Stake: Alliance with casino owner is aimed at growth.(Bank of Southern Connecticut in talks with the Mashantuckets to form a partnership )
January 1, 2004... If it plays its cards right with the Mashantucket Pequots, owners of Foxwoods Casino, Bank of Southern Connecticut-a boutique New Haven shop looking for a growth streak this year-may hit a big number indeed. Bank of Southern Connecticut...

Scene and Heard.
January 1, 2004... "Less expensive homes-from $500k to $2 million-seem to sell readily." Mark Kaprielian, Bay Area real estate agent, on trying to sell Christos Cotsakos' $23 million mansion for 10 months. "If you're not paying attention to China in any...

Trust: Queen City Stays on Top: Money may be lost, but players keep playing.
January 1, 2004... It's tough to stay up in a down market, but in the close world of personal trust management, Charlotte institutions are holding their own. Wachovia and Bank of America are number one and two in holding managed assets of personal trust and...

Hits and Has-Beens.(appointments at LNB Bancorp)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... LNB Bancorp, parent of The Lorain National Bank, returns current board vice-chairman and former CEO James F. Kidd to his former positions of president and CEO, replacing retiring executive Gary C. Smith. Kidd served as president and CEO for...

Fresh Ink.(banking briefs)
January 1, 2004... 1. Brooklyn-based Independence Community Bank agreed to buy Staten Island Bancorp for $1.5 billion in cash and stock. About 60 percent of the new bank's $9 billion loan portfolio will be commercial and about 70 percent of its $9 billion deposit...

Mergers & Acquisitions: Ad Campaigns Forge Ahead: BofA-Fleet merger doesn't halt marketing efforts.
January 1, 2004... Bank of America bought a mixed bag of marketing when it inked the deal with Fleet Bank. But it will be at least until the end of the quarter before the banks start hashing out when the Fleet name will fade and how efforts like Derek Jeter...

Pipeline.(briefs)
January 1, 2004... Too Much of a Good Thing Deploying and managing record levels of equity capital will be one of the key challenges of the banking industry this year, said Barry Kroeger, Ernst & Young's Americas director of banking. Kroeger spoke at a press...

Prophecy in Green: Chicago Economists Forecast a Bright 2004: But will Powell replace Cheney on GOP ticket?
January 1, 2004... The University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business prides itself on the veracity of its famed forecasts for the national and global economies. And why not? With six Nobel prizes in economics under its belt-more than any other U.S. business...

U.S. Economic Predictions.
January 1, 2004... (dollar figures in billions) (part 1 of 2) ALIBER ALIBER 2003 2003 2004 Actuals Nominal GDP (% change) 1.90% 4.00%...

Christos Cotsakos, on Draught.
January 1, 2004... When Christos Cotsakos stormed Wall Street's pinstriped barricades at the helm of E*Trade, it must have seemed like a dream. It turns out he lived in one, too. Ritzy Atherton's La Maison des Reves, a "House of Dreams" for Cotsakos during...

Noted and Noteworthy.
January 1, 2004... A close look at the Securities and Exchange Commission budget shows where the real muscle is going. Printing and reproduction costs, 2002: $3.5 million. 2004? They're asking $25.2 million. Two years, about 700 percent, and weep for the trees....

There's Muscle, and There's Steroids: The Securities and Exchange Commission is in year two of its he-man bulk-up regime. But in Washington, money isn't always money and strength doesn't mean direction.
January 1, 2004... Last fall the Securities and Exchange Commission had to hire a headhunter to help the agency keep pace with intense pressure to pump up. It had to do so in part because Congress was four months late approving its annual budget. As...

Security: Biometrics Takes Hold Overseas, But Not in U.S.: U.S. banks, tied to legacy systems, are reluctant to start over with what many consider untested technology. Then there's the real bugaboo: privacy.
January 1, 2004... Overseas banks have been very proactive in using biometric products and services for everything from employee verification to consumer authentication. In Europe, for example, where ID fraud is taken as seriously as it is in the United States,...

Systems Development: BCPBank's Big Fiserv Bet: Officials at bcpbank did a lot of tweaking to its leased Fiserv banking platform. Now they hope to market their five-module Compta collection to other Fiserv customers. Savvy or straying from mission?
January 1, 2004... Like many growing community banks, bcpbank is grappling with the headaches of compliance, customer service and client retention. But unlike other community banks, this upstart's nimble customization of its leased Fiserv platform has been so...

Mutual Fund Marketing Trickier with the Times: The mutual fund industry isn't expanding much these days. Before the recent turmoil, it was a slugfest of giants concerned about scale. It's hard to shine if you're a little guy.
January 1, 2004... Donald Hodges, co-portfolio manager of the $15 million Hodges Fund, has marketing problems. In short, he's not very good at it-by his own admission. The Dallas-based mutual fund is a subsidiary of First Dallas Securities, owned by Hodges,...

AD Beat: Red, White and Blue Collar to Span 24 States: US Bank's poised to pounce on an economic uptick, analysts say, but new national ads are lackluster. Will consumers care about the creative or just convenience?
January 1, 2004... US Bank is making its first national splash with workaday ads that may not set Madison Avenue abuzz, but get the job done on Main Street, where they matter most. The campaign's "several-million-dollar" phase one couldn't be more...

It's Back to the Drawing Board For Finucane. Surprised? Nah.: Fleet chief marketeer and Boston power player Anne Finucane would be pardoned for shedding a tear as Ken Lewis boxes a Beantown brand her team spent years shoring up. She says it's not been in vain.
January 1, 2004... Fleet Bank had managed to keep its brand afloat even while suffering from serious merger foibles-aggressively taking over BankBoston, a beloved local name, among them. Even so, customer approval jumped 50 percent over the last couple of years....

Whispering Campaign For the Well-Heeled: US Trust dumped BBDO for a shop with no financial services experience. The result is a campaign whose print ads have no ink on them. It just might pay off.
January 1, 2004... The ad shop that made Nike a pop icon is now helping US Trust whisper its way into the lives of rich people. New York-based Wieden & Kennedy, which coined Nike's "Just do it," brings avant-garde panache to financial advertising with three...

Credit Nation Goes Quiet: GreenPoint, among others, is calling on MasterCard to help boost flagging use among credit card customers.
January 1, 2004... Credit card issuers are groping for ways to improve business, as U.S. credit card accounts aren't as active as they used to be. Greenpoint Bank has found success in spurring debit card use with the help of MasterCard Advisors, a recently...

Dog Days?
January 1, 2004... Phillip Humann's bulldog determination to remain independent may not stop what some argue is inevitable: SunTrust's disappearance from the banking landscape. But if the purchase of the Atlanta bank is a foregone conclusion, what it means to the...

Local Banks Rise in Wake Of Bigger-is-Better Mindset: It's the little things that make a big impression. Community banks like Macatawa Bank can prosper-and beat bigger rivals-by ignoring phone calls when dealing with customers.
January 1, 2004... The idea of big acquirers staking their claims in western Michigan is nothing new. Indeed, so many have come over the years that the landscape is thoroughly dotted with out-of-state banks, Chicago's Bank One and Cleveland's National City among...

Time is of the Essence When Brokering Deals: RBC Mortgage is betting the best way to boost mortgage volume in a cooling market is by cozying up to brokers. So it's offering them access to its Internet technology.
January 1, 2004... RBC Mortgage is playing for time in a game where the shot clock keeps getting shorter. But players in the mortgage business know if speed and ease of fulfillment can be added to a fair and competitive offer, a closed mortgage is that much...

SBA's Hector Barreto Revs Economy's Engine.
January 1, 2004... Few in government are doing more to spur small business than the former Kansas City entrepreneur now heading the Small Business Administration. The upside for lenders is more access. The U.S. Small Business Administration's top spot was...

This Money-Go-Round Goes Some Strange Directions: Forget the barroom or the holiday dinner table. The best fight is on Wall Street. Subpoenas are flying, rumors are milling and fines are getting paid. But who picks up the check?
January 1, 2004... The fines against mutual fund companies are getting scrutiny from all sides. News accounts report the latest breeches, often with some industry sage noting that wrongdoing has been a long-time problem. Some regulators have been...

Traders Get Added Power, Profits from Automation: A customized trading system could mean the difference between being able to adapt to market conditions changing by a fraction of a second or missing an opportunity.
January 1, 2004... Some industry players see the future of automated trading as an "arms" race, with firms spending increasingly large sums honing highly advanced machines to give themselves a competitive advantage. Yet the ability to profit depends on human...

Two 800-Pound Gorillas Join Forces for Distribution: Merrill and Morgan team up to get wider distribution of their high-net-worth products. Good luck to the pipsqueaks trying to crack the market.
January 1, 2004... It's not politics, but it's a case of strange bedfellows. Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, two behemoths in financial services, have teamed up in order to improve their already-impressive investment services. A Merrill Lynch...

Lifestages Can Be Difficult. Finances Don't Have to Complicate Matters.: Lifestage marketing isn't new. So why do so many banks do it poorly? They lack the tools to analyze consumer behavior-and then react to it.
January 1, 2004... Institutions long for the benefits of one-to-one and lifestage-based marketing. Wintrust, a holding company for nine community banks in the Chicago metro area, is combining data management with new software that aims to give it a clear signal...

Dark Side of Emerging Markets? Political Risk.: The ability to gauge the affect of political events-fiascos, to be more precise-on investments often escapes investors. Experts contend that political risk analysis is worthy, yet in need of improvement.
January 1, 2004... The tossing of Russian oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky into the slammer on tax evasion charges and freezing 44 percent of the stock of Yukos-the giant energy concern-was a fresh reminder that smart investing in emerging markets is not all...

U.S. Banker Advertising Contacts.
January 1, 2004... 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 David...

Making Inroads with Municipalities.
January 1, 2004... Of all the organizations in a local community, municipal government generally ranks among the largest in terms of budget size. The municipal government is also an important part of the local economy, purchasing everything from police vehicles...

Dissecting the NYSE's Position.
January 1, 2004... The New York Stock Exchange is at the center of an increasing chorus of market professionals who complain that investors are at the mercy of a system that caters to exchange specialists. Allegations of trading ahead of customer orders, failing...