US Banker articles from July 2006

US Banker archives from July 2006

Rants and Raves.
July 1, 2006... The Ones That Got Away I just read your "One Hundred Fifteen Years of Innovation" issue and was astonished by your omission of certainly one-and most probably two-of the most significant innovations in modern banking. The first is...

For Victims of ID Fraud, Losses are Not the Same: Age, income and ethnicity factor into who is most vulnerable to identity fraud. Hispanics and African-Americans, aged 25 to 34, have a 56 percent higher chance than all other consumers of being victimized.
July 1, 2006... That identity fraud is on the rise is concern enough for consumers and financial institutions. But that its most vulnerable victims-Hispanics and African-Americans, aged 25 to 34-suffer longer and sustain larger financial losses than other...

CRA Performance: Four of 22 Banks Ranked As 'Outstanding' by OCC: Remaining 18 were 'satisfactory'.(Community Reinvestment Act)(Office of the Comptroller of the Currency)
July 1, 2006... Four of 22 banks whose Community Reinvestment Act performance was recently made public by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency earned "outstanding" rankings. The list included 18 "satisfactory" banks, while none was rated "needs to...

Scene and Heard.
July 1, 2006... "The highest compliment is my mom likes it." - Josh Denberg, evp at Leo Burnett, on the buzz for the new WaMu ad campaign. "I would hate to own a small business and hear that my banker thinks he doesn't need to know me." - Steve...

Card-Processing Network: Will It or Won't It? BofA Keeps Card Close to Vest.: Did CEO Ken Lewis prematurely show his hand?(statistics of credit cards)
July 1, 2006... Though Bank of America has been busy trying to downplay CEO Ken Lewis's musings about the bank's interest in starting a card network and a fifth new card brand, it hasn't stopped analysts from imagining what the industry would be like with a...

Hits and Has-Beens.(Bank of Birmingham)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Bank of America scored its third federal-employee coup with the hiring of Larry Di Rita, an aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is taking a communications post at the bank's corporate and investment bank. William J. Fox, former...

Fresh Ink.(acquisitions)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... 1. First Community Bancorp will pay $277 million in cash and stock to acquire Community Bancorp. Community Bancorp has $888 million in assets and 12 branches in San Diego and Riverside counties. The deal will create a bank with 26 branches and...

The Top 200 Community Banks.(ranking of community banks)
July 1, 2006... (Ranked by 3-Year Average ROE) Who says small can't be powerful? U.S. Banker's annual performance ranking of the top 200 publicly traded community banks proves that tiny packages can pack a huge wallop. It's no surprise, however, that...

'The Banks Made Me Do It!' Says Lay in Bank-Fraud Trial.
July 1, 2006... It was the banks' fault. So says former Enron Corp. chairman Kenneth Lay, who says Bank of America, Compass Bancshares and JPMorgan Chase should have notified him that when he signed their loan documents, he was violating loan provisions that...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Oops. Japan's high-tech money-printing bureau was humbled recently when 39,400 problem bills were discovered after some ATMs rejected them. The 1,000-yen bill, among several redesigned in 2004 with sophisticated security fraud-fighting...

The Brouhaha Over Trust, B-D Rules: Banks have faced uncertainty on a number of trust and broker-dealer questions since GLB in 1999. Now, a proposed provision would force the SEC to work with the industry to draft rules.(rules for banking industry)
July 1, 2006... Banks are holding their breath for passage of a provision, now part of the regulatory-relief legislation winding its way though Congress, which would eject them from the legal limbo they've been immersed in since the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was...

Network Management: Managing Radical Network Changes: Overwhelmed by business and regulatory complexities, banks are relying on automated configuration solutions to handle hundreds or thousands of network devices. That's overload.
July 1, 2006... It's been six years since Cabletron Systems left the network switching and router business to the Ciscos of the world. Another dot.com-era telecom equipment maker, Bay Networks, became part of the Nortel family during the Clinton...

Beyond Demographics: Tracking Buying Trends: Who knew prospective first-time home buyers love three FOX shows: "Family Guy," Simpsons" and "War at Home?" That kind of detail is making bank marketers salivate.(market research)
July 1, 2006... When Fallon Worldwide was searching for a strategy to win Citibank's business in 1999, its market researchers were casting about for a new way for the retail giant to segment its customers. But scores of focus groups weren't yielding any...

AD Beat: All Play and Some Work Lets WaMu Choose Fun: Why is a bunch of aging bankers comical? Just ask WaMu, which is laughing all the way to the bank with a new campaign that has prompted a record spike in the number of new checking accounts.(Washington Mutual Bank)
July 1, 2006... Washington Mutual likes to play seriously. Its new ad campaign, which tweaks the staid world of banking, certainly is fun-loving, even a little goofy. The TV and print ads in newspapers, magazines and on billboards, which feature a group...

The Entrepreneur's Endgame.(Richard Fairbank )(Capital One )(John Kanas)
July 1, 2006... CEO Richard Fairbank has groomed Capital One into a credit-card powerhouse, elevating information-based marketing to an art form and stirring envy in the hearts of rival issuers. Now he has his sights set on reinventing retail banking....

Surcharge-Free ATMs Help Smaller Banks Compete: Are community banks driving the new trend toward surcharge-free ATMs for all customers? They're certainly at the forefront-and not questioning that strategy.
July 1, 2006... With only two company-owned ATMs, seven-year-old First Reliance of Florence, SC, hunted for a strategy to help the rapidly growing community bank compete with Bank of America and Washington Mutual, whose logos dominate its footprint. One...

Helping Low-Income Consumers Save Can Mean High Profits For Smart Banks: Individual development accounts could be a boon to banks, but a patchwork of local groups does not have the reach to make it a nationwide effort. That may change in 2007, thanks to a shift in the tax law.(usage of 401k plans)
July 1, 2006... In the decade-plus that individual development accounts have been around, they have shown that low-income earners can save and build assets if they are educated and are given the right options, according to advocates. Nevertheless, IDAs have...

CapStone Puts Up Dukes In a Booming Raleigh Market: Two industry veterans bring their banking skills to the hot Raleigh area, looking for profits over growth and hoping to cash in on very small businesses. They picked a sizzling growth spot.(Capstone Bank N.A.)
July 1, 2006... Government and market forces have combined to push Raleigh, NC, to become the fastest-growing part of the state, luring new residents and businesses. New banks and branches are popping up as well. Raleigh's population has grown by almost 20...

When Cash Is King at Corporations, Banks See Green, Too: Firms have a record $642 billion in cash, 7.4 percent of their total market cap. That's good news for big and small banks that offer advisory and cash management services.
July 1, 2006... The record cash levels of corporate America will have reverberations across the banking industry in the coming months, from the behemoths to the community banks, according to industry watchers. The impact on the bigger banks is obvious:...

As Rich Get Richer, Banks Ready for Generational Transfer: In the next few decades, the globe's wealthiest are set to transfer a level of wealth greater than the GDP of the U.S. For advisors who truly understand these clients' needs, it's the opportunity of a lifetime.
July 1, 2006... The worldwide army of millionaires marched ever upward last year, reaching 8.7 million, a 6.5 percent increase over the previous year. And the total assets they hold increased 8.5 percent to $33.4 trillion, according to the 10th annual World...

As Asia Firms Come a Knockin, U.S. Banks are Opening Their Doors: With the value of deals in Asia soaring 73.8 percent in 2005 over the previous year, U.S. investment banks ignore the region at their own peril. Here's how to do it right.
July 1, 2006... When it comes to mergers and acquisitions, there's no place hotter than Asia. In the second half of 2005 alone, deals in the region rose 22 percent over the previous six months, according to data from Price-waterhouseCoopers. And 2006 is on...

Is Trade-Imbalance Report Greatly Exaggerated?: The U.S. doesn't just export goods that are easy to quantify like wheat or cars. Today's exports include brain power and business models. How do you measure these?
July 1, 2006... A wonky debate regarding the measurement of exports has spilled into the public domain this year, and has polarized economists into two camps. The debate spans the spectrum from philosophical ("Just how much is knowledge worth?") to the...

The Truth About False Positives.
July 1, 2006... Information-leak prevention is one of the hottest areas of focus in today's security industry. Since such prevention requires interfering with the crucial flow of business information, any false positive-what appears to be a leak of sensitive...