US Banker articles from January 2006

US Banker archives from January 2006

Katrina and the SBA.(small business administration)
January 1, 2006... I recently visited hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. Words cannot describe the devastation that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita brought to the area. But, let me try. Sixteen parishes (counties) surrounding New Orleans were devastated by the...

The Best in Class Put Fundamentals Into Play: Without question, the CFO has become the new face of financial services. A key player in any organization's strategic team, the CFO today must also juggle financial, risk and compliance efforts.(chief financial officers)
January 1, 2006... One would think choosing U.S. Banker's All-Star Banking Team would be a snap, given the record profits recorded in 2005. But a confluence of factors such as increased regulatory pressure, rising interest rates and stiffer competition meant...

Shareholder Activism: Despite NYSE Setback, RI Presses Sovereign Fight: Investor pursuing two board seats in spring.
January 1, 2006... As the press-release attacks continue between Phil-adelphia-based Sovereign Bancorp and Relational Investors, the institutional investor is refusing to abandon its quest to get two directors on the bank's board at the annual meeting this...

Scene and Heard.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... "AmSouth said flat out it would pay for deposits. They saw great [deposit] growth, but they took it on the chin when funding costs started to rise." Cameron Hurst, an analyst at Portales Partners, on whether it's worth paying for deposits....

Rising interest Rates: Expect New Corporate Focus, Escalating Consumer Fees: A flattening yield curve goes even flatter.
January 1, 2006... Lest anyone think interest rates are a bore, mull this over: Escalating rates in 2006 will force a major focus on corporate customers, while consumers will cough up much more in fees. Or this: After months of bemoaning weak long-term rates,...

Hits and Has-Beens.(Deanna Oppenheimer joins Barclays)(Glenn E. Gray joins Sunwest Bank of Tustin)(Maria Elena Lagomasino joins JPMorgan Private Bank)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Deanna Oppenheimer has been appointed chief executive of UK retail banking at Barclays, following the resignation of director and UK banking chief executive Roger Davis. Additionally, Gary Hoffman has been named chairman of UK Banking and...

Fresh Ink.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... 1. Wachovia plans to sell its corporate trust and institutional custody businesses to U.S. Bank for $720 million. Wachovia says the sale would better enable it to focus on retail brokerage, asset management and retirement. The deal is set to...

M&A: Turkey's Strong Growth Beckons Western Banks: Institutions pooh-pooh EU membership quest.
January 1, 2006... Forget Latvia. Ignore Poland and Romania. And don't even think about Estonia. The real poster child for opportunity in Euroland is Turkey, which has become the darling of Western banks looking for expansion options and economic stability. Never...

Pipeline.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... SunTrust Joins 50-plus employee club SunTrust Banks, Inc. of Atlanta, GA, became the first bank to join AARP's Featured Employers program, an initiative launched last February to help keep people over 50 in the workforce. SunTrust is one...

What's the Best Way to Get Ahead? Perfect the Right Kind of Cheating.(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... Cheat to Win: The Honest Way to Break All the Dishonest Rules in Business By Bob MacDonald Paradon Publishing, 349 pages, $26.95 Bob MacDonald has a reputation in the business world as an iconoclast, even a loose cannon, and it...

Sallie Mae Wins ILC Status, While Wal-Mart Awaits Word.(wal-mart stores inc)
January 1, 2006... Student-loan lender Sallie Mae, also known as SLM Corp., has won approval from both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions for an industrial bank charter. This month, Sallie Mae expects to begin...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Sixty-five percent of college students carry credit card debt, with over 50 percent charging their cards to the limit some or most of the time, according to a new survey funded by Oppenheimer Funds and conducted by Smith College. This debt is...

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble?: Although analysts agree the housing market is softening, they differ on whether a housing bubble exists. Like the Loch Ness monster, doubters say they'll believe it when they see it.
January 1, 2006... Stock picker extraordinaire Jim Cramer is a believer, but Fed Reserve chairman-elect Ben S. Bernanke isn't. The debate over whether there's a housing market bubble-after five record-breaking years-reached new heights last quarter with...

Authentication: Brrrring! Your Bank is Calling.: While the reported cost of tokens has left many banks wringing their hands, cell phones are emerging as a popular low-cost alternative for ID verification.
January 1, 2006... The recent cell-phone bandit not withstanding, there may soon be one more reason customers won't leave home without their handhelds: strong out-of-band authentication for Web banking. As banks scramble to create a timetable for risk assessment...

Security: Phishing Penalties Rise in Golden State: A California law means criminals face civil penalties of up to $500,000 for every violation they commit. Scammers may find it more expensive to hook a live one.
January 1, 2006... California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been facing unwelcome wrath from voters recently, but there's a good chance he'd welcome the anger of a very non-special interest group targeted by a recent state law: Internet scammers. The...

Finding Neverland: Banks Woo the 'Twixster': Increasing numbers of 18- to 29-year-olds are failing to see themselves as adults. But just because this demographic may be a bit immature doesn't mean it's unbankable.
January 1, 2006... In the title track off his 2004 album Twentysomething, jazz darling Jamie Cullum laments a directionless life. "But I'm still having fun and I guess that's the key," he sings. "I'm a twentysomething and I'll keep being me." It could be the...

AD Beat: Manulife Offers New Spin On the Family 'Business': John Hancock's ad campaign, its first since its merger with Manulife Financial, puts a corporate spin on families' need to care for loved ones. Who doesn't want a profitable family?
January 1, 2006... While the concept of the American family certainly has evolved over the last century, most sociologists would agree that its importance remains primary in people's lives. Boston-based John Hancock is banking on this theory with its latest...

What Really Works When Selling an HSA: Banks need to get serious about the health savings account market-before it's too late, says HSA Coalition's Dan Perrin. And, no, it's not too late.(health savings accounts)(Dan Perrin)(HSA Coalition)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... Staying well is becoming big business, and banks have an opportunity to get in on the ground floor in the rapidly growing health savings accounts market. Some seven percent of the commercially insured market, or about 12 million people, will...

Fabulous on the Fundamentals.
January 1, 2006... The first three quarters of 2005 were the most profitable in banking history, with record earnings of $102 billion. Thirteen of USB's 20 All-Star Banks sported returns on equity of 20 percent or more, compared to an industry average of 12.69...

At the helm The Top 10 CEOs.
January 1, 2006... When Ray Davis moved west from Atlanta in 1994 to run a tiny $130 million-asset bank in Oregon's lumber country, some thought him nuts. But the former banking consultant was eager to practice what he had been preaching about retail...

Nebraska Bank Hopes Its Mole Will 'Rat Out' Customers: As community banks fight for market share, they employ variations of one theme: connect with people. To do so, one bank created a "university" and sponsors yearlong games based on reality TV.
January 1, 2006... First State Bank & Trust Company in Fremont, NE, is battling a typical scenario of the Plains states: a small-town environment with an aging population and a dwindling pool of potential customers. The biggest city in the state, Omaha, is...

How to Get Johnny to Save When All He Does is Spend: Financial institutions gain business by tailoring card reward programs to customers' biggest worry-saving money. The key to success: Don't ask customers to change their spending ways.
January 1, 2006... Saving money is hard, say Americans-really hard. According to a recent survey conducted by Key Bank of Cleveland, some 70 percent of people find saving more difficult than losing weight, raising children, getting a job and even finding love....

Banks Making Inroads Into Car-Loan Business: Banks have been losing out to the captive financing companies in the car-loan market, but new programs spark hope to capture some of the lost customers. This means the light is green for banks.
January 1, 2006... There is a growing opportunity for banks in automotive financing, a niche that has long been dominated by the manufacturer-owned captive financing arms, according to industry participants. The car loan market is divided into two segments:...

JPMorgan's Decision to Sell Insurance Biz Raises Eyebrows: JPMorgan Chase is looking to unload its life-insurance and annuity business. What does the bank hope to gain and what does this mean for other banks hawking their own investment products?
January 1, 2006... JPMorgan Chase's year-end decision to sell its life-insurance and annuity business, which drew $393 million in revenues in 2004, comes a little more than a year after the company's merger with Bank One, an acquisition that brought this very...

Advertising Contacts.(Directory)
January 1, 2006... GROUP PUBLISHER David Cleworth 27700 Pine Point Drive Wesley Chapel, FL 33543 Tel: 813.929.6907 Fax: 813.929.6908 Outside the U.S. Please contact the Publisher U.S. BANKER ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES ...

CMO or Chief Measurement Officer?
January 1, 2006... To CEOs, CFOs and analysts, marketing is often thought of as the blood-sucking vampire of the corporate budget. Consider that companies in the United States spend more than $2.5 billion on stadium naming rights alone. The average cost to market...

Unsnarling Anti-tying Law's Red Tape.
January 1, 2006... The Federal Reserve has a chance to fix one of the most paradoxical laws in America: the bank anti-tying law. It is less known but more insidious than the antitrust tying laws so famously aimed at Microsoft. It's time for the Fed to either...