US Banker articles from June 2006

US Banker archives from June 2006

Rants and Raves.(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2006... Customer Loyalty is No-Brainer I just read your April 2006 commentary ("The Difference Between Good and Bad Profits"). I agree with you 100 percent. Individuals making decisions about customer service and employee goals do not talk to...

Wachovia's Bet on Golden West is Talk of the Town: It was just a matter of time. That Ken Thompson's desire to build a national bank would solve the Sandlers's succession problem is only half the story. What's being talked about from Charlotte to New York and back again is the real deal.
June 1, 2006... There are few things in business that get tongues wagging faster than a good old-fashioned merger inked against an ultra-competitive industry backdrop. Observers can't help themselves from dissecting the deal immediately; rivals feel compelled...

Lending: Banks Vent Rage Over Commercial RE Loan Rule: Worries abound the real estate market will sour.
June 1, 2006... Banks, in an uproar over regulators' proposal that warns those with high concentrations of commercial real-estate loans may have to raise their capital reserves, worry that new regulations will eat into their bottom line. The Federal...

Scene and Heard.
June 1, 2006... "I had $2.5 million in deposits on those two buses." - Barbara Hahl, marketing manager of First National Bank of Jefferson in upstate New York, about a customer trip the bank organized to wineries. "The [current] growth is...

Corporate Governance: Ready, Aim and Fire: Shareholders Get Armed: Proposals on compensation remain key.
June 1, 2006... This may be remembered as the spring that shareholders refocused their discontent over executive compensation, directing their ire instead at the boards that approve pay packages. Shareholders at a handful of financial institutions put forth...

Eagles and Turkeys.(Institutional Shareholder Services)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Institutional Shareholder Services's Corporate Governance Quotient ranks banks based on 63 weighted variables: TOP 5 Fifth Third Bancorp 100.0 West Coast Bancorp (OR) 99.8 National City Corp. 99.7 ...

Hits and Has-Beens.(Promontory Financial Group appoints Arthur Levitt, Frank Zarb)(Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. appoints Gareth Davie)(Societe Generale Corporate and Investment appoints Scott Friedman, Alfred Capra, William A. Osborn)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Arthur Levitt, former SEC chairman, and Frank Zarb, former chairman of NASD, will co-chair the security practice of Promontory Financial Group, a regulatory, compliance and crisis-management firm. Gareth Davie, who spent nearly 20 years...

Fresh Ink.(Wachovia Corp. acquires Golden West Financial Corp.)(Webster Financial Corp. plans)(Glacier Bancorporation Inc. acquires Citizens Development Co.)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... 1. Wachovia announced it would Golden West Financial Corp. in a stock-and-cash deal valued at $25 billion. Its purchase of the nation's second-largest savings and loan, based in Oakland, CA, gives the Charlotte bank a national presence. The...

Authentication: With 2 Buys, RSA Becomes The Alpha Male: Customers await integration.(RSA Security Inc.)
June 1, 2006... The short list for online customer-authentication vendors has become significantly shorter since the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council announced its two-factor authentication guidance last October. In that time, two companies...

Pipeline: Rollover Retirees aren't Afraid to Jump Ship.(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of recent retirees have either reinvested their 401(k) savings into an IRA or are exploring options to move their funds to a new provider, according to a new Maritz poll. However, it suggests that 401(k)...

Under Pressure from Greens, ING Kills $1.7 Billion Paper-Mill Project.
June 1, 2006... Under pressure from environmental groups, Dutch banking giant ING has agreed to pull its project financing from a controversial $1.7 billion paper-mill project in Uruguay and Argentina. In a recent letter to Friends of the Earth International,...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Bank sales)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... Banks increased their sales of indexed annuities a whopping 67 percent in 2005, to almost $1.6 billion. According to the Quarterly Kehrer-Midwood Financial Bank Index Annuity Sales Report, bank-sold indexed annuity premium, which guarantees a...

Falling Dollar, Climbing Debt: In recent years, the dollar's value has been buoyed by huge purchases of U.S. Treasury bills by foreigners. So what happens if they lose their appetite for U.S. debt? It won't be pretty.
June 1, 2006... Like the spendaholic flirting with bankruptcy, the U.S. government's failure to rein in spending and unwillingness to control trade and fiscal deficits is spiraling the nation into an untenable position. Now the consequences-a falling...

Sales & Marketing Automation: Here's a Concept: Burn the Brochure: Forget the print shop. LaSalle Bank uses an automated collateral tool to deliver about $3 million in cost savings and enhanced cross-selling options to its sales teams.
June 1, 2006... Money doesn't grow on trees, but it sure eats up a lot of paper. LaSalle Bank in Chicago found out how much in December, when marketing vp Jack Thurston tallied up how much the $70 billion-asset bank has saved since it quit printing...

Mortgages: Quicken Gets New Lead On Locals: A sponsor deal with HomePages allows consumers to access arial maps and neighborhood information. What a way to tap an $11 billion local ad market.(Quicken Loans)(Intuit Lender Services Inc.)
June 1, 2006... Online lender Quicken Loans signed up to become a "premier advertising sponsor" and content provider on HomePages.com, a service of real-estate information company HouseValues, a deal that opens up a new world of information to consumers and an...

Hey, ATM: You Talkin' to Me?: Forget sending letters. Forget that email blast. Personalizing messages to customers at the ATM may be the most effective way to sell your bank's products to existing-and potential-customers.
June 1, 2006... Diebold's new ATM software wants to make direct mail and email promotions obsolete. Instead of wooing clients with new products via methods that can be ignored-letters tossed without being opened and email killed without reading-banks can now...

Hunteror Hunted?: CEO Thomas Hoaglin has turned around Huntington Bancshares, outperforming peers during his five years at the helm. Faced with a tough local economy and stiff competition, though, is this enough to ensure its continued independence?(Huntington Bancshares Inc.)(Company overview)
June 1, 2006... When Thomas Hoaglin took over as CEO in early 2001, Huntington Bancshares had the look of an institution in freefall. The Columbus, OH-based company had botched the integration of its 1997 First Michigan Bank acquisition, paid too much in 1998...

Does Pierz, MN, Have Success in the Water?: This town of 1,296 has produced so many high achievers in banking that it can be somewhat intimidating to run a bank here. But Ken Heid, who heads Farmers & Mechanics State Bank, is holding his own.(Biography)
June 1, 2006... Think you face high expectations? Consider, for a moment, Ken Heid's situation. The CEO of Farmers & Mechanics State Bank in tiny Pierz, MN, comes to work every day knowing that his town is a breeding ground for successful, high-profile...

Gotta a Yen for Tokyo? Talk To Your Community Bank.: Travel programs have quietly become a major customer-retention tool in many parts of the country. Nearly 2,000 banks are offering this perk to the mostly over-50 crowd.
June 1, 2006... Travel clubs are becoming a thriving practice at hundreds of small U.S. banks, which is being largely overlooked by many bigger players in the industry. The clubs are often aimed at older customers who prefer organized group trips, says...

GE Consumer Finance Takes It Up a Notch: Americans like to consume, no doubt about it. And GE Consumer Finance is helping them finance their nasty little habit by expanding its retail-sales team to offer consumer credit wherever it's needed.
June 1, 2006... There's seemingly no end to the list of discretionary purchases Americans are willing to finance; at GE Consumer Finance's retail-sales unit, revenues are soaring thanks to consumers' willingness to borrow for everything from dental implants...

Making Sense of HSAs For Community Banks: Community and mid-sized banks are jumping into the fray of health savings accounts, but some analysts wonder if they can successfully compete against the big guys.
June 1, 2006... A few dozen mid-sized and community banks are beginning to offer health savings accounts and more are expected to follow suit soon. But some industry analysts say they will have a tough time finding success competing against the big players....

An Equity-Debt Hybrid Is Making Waves in Staid Market: With a twist on traditional trust-preferred securities, a hybrid bond is becoming popular again, just when banks are facing billions of dollars in refinancing debt. But is this the answer?
June 1, 2006... A hybrid security has reemerged in the marketplace that is expected to become very popular with banks over the next two years. A twist on traditional trust-preferred securities, this instrument ultimately will enable banks to refinance billions...

Merrily the Country Rolls Along...: With GDP growth surging and unemployment rates sliding, the economy is barreling forward. But the precarious energy situation and geopolitical tensions loom large. Can the U.S. economy hold up?
June 1, 2006... The economy is rolling along at an almost breakneck clip that would have been unimaginable last year, registering a 4.8 percent increase in the first quarter this year. Partly due to pent-up activity after a slow fourth quarter (1.7 percent...

The Authentication Imperative.
June 1, 2006... It has become alarmingly clear: e-commerce will not thrive on user names and passwords alone. Identity theft and online fraud are forcing financial institutions, governments and other organizations to quickly find ways to improve Internet...

Compliance Initiatives Can Yield IT Opportunities.
June 1, 2006... For financial institutions, budgeting for compliance initiatives has become as routine as other annual system maintenance items. However, compliance budgets have been growing even faster. At one time, meeting the information technology...

Smart Mergers Can Drive Growth.(Capital One Financial Corp. acquires North Fork Bancorporation Inc.)
June 1, 2006... The first shot in a new round of bank consolidation was sounded with the merger of Capital One Financial Corp. and North Fork Bancorp. But this time, acquirers must focus on revenue growth, not cost reduction, to justify purchase premiums. ...

Change is in the air. Change is everywhere. And banking is no exception.
June 1, 2006... A mere generation ago, remote banking schemes were considered heresy. That was until a community bank in upstate New York installed an electronic banking terminal at a local grocery store, thereby setting into motion the assimilation of ATMs...