US Banker articles from January 2005

US Banker archives from January 2005

Toeing the Party Line.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... After reading Karen Krebsbach's article entitled "The Next Four Years" (Inside Track, December 2004), I am amazed by her slant. Could she possibly be any more of a Democrat? "Let's create a workable plan to payoff the deficit in four years. And...

MasterCard. Visa. Amex. Welcome to the Sandbox.: MasterCard and Visa have long held banks' feet to the fire for even dreaming of taking "the customer always comes first" approach by issuing American Express cards.
January 1, 2005... American Express struck yet another blow against MasterCard and Visa when it revealed that Citibank had agreed to issue credit cards in the U.S., accepted on Amex's global merchant network, beginning in late 2005. Says Amex chief executive...

Compensation: The Compliance Officer Rises to the C-Suite: His growing clout is prompting salary spikes.
January 1, 2005... Who's the most valuable person in your bank? Not the CEO, not the COO, not the CFO. Today that lofty designation most likely belongs to another: the compliance officer, whom recruiters say has become the hottest commodity in the industry. ...

Scene and Heard.(banking executives-opinion)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... "I can't see banks out there teaching people not to use credit. They would market themselves out of business." Chris Viale, acting president and CEO, Cambridge Credit Counseling "Unless you've actually been in [tellers'] shoes, it's so...

Performance: Big Banks Claim Decent '04, But Expect '05 Challenges: Damning banks with faint praise last year.
January 1, 2005... Take your pick of expressions that convey mediocrity: solid accomplishment; mixed bag; decent but not great; improving but more work to do. If you talk to industry analysts about the performance of large U.S. banks in 2004, you'll hear all of...

Hits and Has-Beens.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... John F. Cullinane has been named First Financial Trust president and CEO, pending regulatory approval of the firm's acquisition by The Savings Bank of Wakefield, MA. Cullinane served as vp and executive trust officer at The Savings Bank. ...

FreshInk.(banking industry-mergers and acquisitions)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... 1. Community Banks plans to buy PennRock Financial Services for $326 million in stock. Officials say the deal merges two fast-growing, community-minded banks to create a $3 billion institution in central Pennsylvania. Penn Rock CEO Melvin...

Customer Service: Fending Off Consumer Rage: Most don't want their money back, just to be heard.
January 1, 2005... In a recent survey of customer service among a field of industries, financial services distinguished itself by making customers consistently angrier than any other industry. The Customer Care Alliance survey sought information about an...

Pipeline.(banking industry-loan survey and rankings)
January 1, 2005... Lenders Pessimistic on Loan Demand For the second quarter in a row, lenders' expectations for domestic loan demand dropped, according to Phoenix Management Services' quarterly survey on the lending climate in America. Only 32 percent of...

Near-Shore Outsourcing: With Low Costs, Belfast Lures U.S. Financial Firms: Can ex-terrorist hotspot overcome its past?
January 1, 2005... Northern Ireland is proof positive that capitalism trumps terrorism. Ten years after the cease-fire between the British government and the outlawed Irish Republican Army, Belfast is ready to reinvent itself, game to take on its tech-savvy...

Regional Office Rents 2004.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Cost per Cost per Cost per UK & Ireland sq ft [pounds sterling] sq ft e sq ft $ Belfast [pounds sterling]12.50 e18.82 $22.43 Birmingham [pounds sterling]27.50 e41.08 $50.13 ...

Marketing 101: As Simple as a Chat With a Favorite Business Professor.(The Financial Services Marketing Handbook)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... The Financial Services Marketing Handbook By Evelyn Ehrlich and Louis "Duke" Fanelli Bloomberg Press, 256 pages, $39.95 The Financial Services Marketing Handbook is an ambitious, encyclopedic resource for bank marketers...

Maybe Those Computer-Game Zombie Kids are on to Something.
January 1, 2005... It may well be the panoramic software scenes played out in Myst or the riot explosions from Grand Theft Auto that are responsible for bringing the $200 computer into the world-an incredible boon for the developing world, sure, but also a tool...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Duane Kropuenske's firm does more than credit scoring. It does faith healing. Getting quite a ride thanks to a recent New York Times Magazine article, Kropuenske and his staff at the self-styled Christian-based Riverview Community Bank in...

Rudy Makes Peace with Wall St. Past: Will the ex-NYC mayor's leap into the banking industry aid his GOP presidential nomination bid in 2008? High personal net wealth hasn't hurt a professional pol yet.
January 1, 2005... Perhaps it's really true that the yellow brick road to the White House is lined with gold. Paving the way a brick at a time is erstwhile New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who announced his latest foray into banking with the purchase last...

Disaster Recovery: Beating Back 'Ivan the Terrible': Banks in the way of the 15 storms and hurricanes that slammed Florida and the Gulf Coast last year learned a lesson about disasters. Being prepared works.
January 1, 2005... Disaster recovery can often seem like a very theoretical problem, the perception often being that the most likely real-world disaster will be a power outage lasting a few hours. But tell that to the bankers of Florida and the Gulf Cost, which...

Check 21: Debunking Urban Legends: Believe it or not, there's still lots of public misconception about the law, not to mention the long road ahead to get the technology at thousands of banks in sync. It's moving along, though.
January 1, 2005... As October 28 approached, a wave of stories began to appear across the country about how corporate America in cahoots with Washington, D.C., had hoodwinked the consumer once again. It had nothing to do with war or taxes, but of something...

Adoption of Image Technologies.(check images-capture)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... 2004 2006 Banks that capture Regional 0% 35% check images Super Regional 0% 56% at the ATM Banks that capture Regional 0% 38% check images Super Regional 6% 31% at branch locations Copyright 2005...

In '04, Bank Ads Scored Big. Message Delivered.: Industry ads were better last year. A lot better. The sophistication of the work of overachieving advertisers in 2004 has helped elevate the industry. And it needed it.(advertising campaigns)
January 1, 2005... Financial services advertising is finally coming into its own, as well it should, given the huge sums banks have been pouring into it. The Royal Bank of Scotland increased its ad spending by 3,700 percent between 2000 and 2003, Wachovia by...

Consumers are Overspending. That's Work for Credit Counselors.: Chris Viale, acting CEO of Cambridge Credit Counseling, understands consumers' escalating credit-card debt. Are banks doling out aspirin?(Interview)
January 1, 2005... The average American credit card holder is $14,000 in debt. That's where Cambridge Credit Counseling comes in, which aims to raise financial literacy among the masses. The non-profit, which has more than 180,000 clients nationwide-a fraction of...

TWENTY TWENTY Vision: The economy might be lukewarm, but banks in the Pacific Northwest are hot. It's not unusual to see ROEs and P/Es hovering at 20. The region's rise as a banking power center is due to a crop of sharp CEOs-Umpqua Bank's Ray Davis and Cascade Bancorp's Patricia Moss among them-adeptly firing up the front lines and outperforming their national peers in the process.(return on equity)
January 1, 2005... Nestled among the art galleries, coffee shops and loft apartments of Portland, OR's Renaissance-style Pearl District lies Ray Davis's latest effort to bolster his bank's image as a trendsetter. The 3,500-square-foot Umpqua Bank outlet here...

Profits and Growth: Two Banks Step Up Their Game: Bank of the Ozarks and Oriental Financial Group are focusing on best practices in different divisions to nudge their institutions toward the profitability sweet spot. Success is in the details.
January 1, 2005... Bank of the Ozarks is among several publicly held mid-tier banks that have honed best-practice niches into profit centers, making them bedrock performers for shareholders and ensuring their survival against both national goliaths and community...

With Rising Teller Turnover, Banks Aim to Retain: Is your bank keeping its tellers happy? With one out of three defecting every year, institutions are strapped for ways to hang onto their front-line staffers. Here's what works-and what doesn't.
January 1, 2005... Bank tellers are about as well paid as kids tending a McDonald's deep fryer. While tellers have some of the industry's lowest salaries-even compared with those of mail clerks and couriers-meager pay isn't the only culprit for turnover...

Bank Employees' Median Base Salaries*.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
January 1, 2005... 1999 2004 % change Teller $16,217 $19,138 18.0 Head Teller $21,000 $24,316 15.8 Teller Trainer $24,000 $26,945 12.3 ...

Mellon Bank Takes on Third-Party Market: Private-label cash management is a fragmented market, with most providers focusing on one or two areas. Now Mellon has launched a full range of services, aiming to go head-to-head with vendors.
January 1, 2005... Mellon Bank is hoping to cash in on the rapidly growing business of private-label cash management-and it has no qualms about taking on the big technology players in this highly competitive space in a bid to curry favor with small and mid-size...

With Sun Shining, Banks Make Hay: Community banks are making significant strides in reaching out to their wealthy customers. By some measures, they're even outpacing their larger brethren, according to a recent survey. What are they doing right?
January 1, 2005... John Houston, svp and national sales manager at St. Petersburg, FL-based Raymond James, says that community banks' brokerage operations are gathering such steam that within five to 10 years he expects them to close the revenue gap with regional...

U.S. Banker Advertising Contacts.(Brief Article)(Directory)
January 1, 2005... 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...

Ignoring the 'B' Word in the Housing Market: Higher stock prices don't mean real-estate prices will plummet. The element that matters most in whether house prices remain stable is the impact of the Fed on interest rates, which will continue to rise.
January 1, 2005... The stock market is climbing and the Fed is raising interest rates. This combination has brought out renewed talk of a decline in real estate (don't say the "B" word). Allow me to dispel the misconception once and for all. A dispassionate...

The Stock Market in Bush's Act II.
January 1, 2005... Will four more years be good for the market? It's widely believed that a business-friendly Republican like President Bush will help the market, while a tax-friendly Democrat like John Kerry will hurt the market. Yet historically, the Dow Jones...