US Banker articles from June 2009

US Banker archives from June 2009

Past the Point of Debate on TCE Ratio; Critics say that the TCE ratio can understate or overstate a bank's health because its calculation includes unrealized securities losses, which are inherently volatile.(Commentary)(Editorial)
June 1, 2009... Byline: Alan Kline, Editor-in-Chief As a longtime banking journalist I probably shouldn't admit this, but until a few months ago I'd barely ever heard the term "tangible common equity." When evaluating the health of a bank, my colleagues...

On the Hunt to Catch the Thief Within; With rogue trading and other types of insider fraud on the rise, technology that can detect employee misdeeds tops banks' wish lists.(Conference news)
June 1, 2009... Byline: Rebecca Sausner Dear God, send me an accident," or so goes every risk manager's prayer, jokes Eva Leighton, director of operational risk at Citigroup, making light of the difficulty risk managers face in using only risk data to...

Slow and Steady Wins the Race; Top 200 Community banks and thrifts ranked by 3-Year Average ROE.(Snapshot)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... Byline: Alan Kline It wasn't long ago that banks in slow-growth states such as Pennsylvania and New York were seen as laggards because they couldn't keep pace with their counterparts in go-go markets like Florida, Arizona and Nevada. But...

Taking a New Swipe At Debit Incentives; Using card-spending data to create targeted rewards often engages more debit usage - and could create new profit centers for banks.(Marketing)
June 1, 2009... Byline: Glen Fest Busey Bank of Champaign, Ill., has given out debit rewards since 2005 to increase incremental revenue from cardholders through interchange, and add-on services, like bill-pay. The program generates about $62 in annual...

AD Beat: Cashing In on Cash; What started out as a small-scale campaign to breathe life into a flagging kids' savings program has led to an image makeover for one Arkansas bank.(Marketing)
June 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian When brainstorming over the winter about potential mascots to promote First Arkansas Bank & Trust's children's savings program, the bank's marketing team considered the usual suspects: superheroes, Barney, cartoon...

A Stimulating Development; The Obama administration's commitment to promoting sustainability, energy efficiency and other environmental initiatives has community bankers seeing green.
June 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian Talk about good timing. Just weeks after Congress passed a massive economic stimulus bill that included more than $40 billion of green initiatives, organizers of the environmentally focused e3bank were given a...

Counselor Loan-Mod Tool Aids Lenders in a Pinch; A portal used by credit counseling agencies is speeding up workouts - and providing relief to overworked servicing teams at such firms as Wells, BofA and Chase.(Early Resolution Counseling Portal)
June 1, 2009... Byline: Kathy Brister A software tool conceived as a way to bring faster relief to troubled borrowers now holds promise for aiding the overburdened banks that backed those mortgages. The tool - called the Early Resolution Counseling...

Seeking to Solve A 401(k) Riddle; The market for selling retirement plans to small businesses is wide open, but few banks are jumping in because profits have been elusive. Several institutions believe online platforms are the answer.(Wealth Management (Retirement Planning))
June 1, 2009... Byline: Steve Garmhausen SunTrust Banks Inc.'s launch in April of a retirement plan platform for small employers seems like a no-brainer. According to ING Direct, just 20 percent of U.S. businesses with fewer than 25 employees have...

Integrating Risk Management With Financial Performance.(OpEd)(Conference news)
June 1, 2009... Byline: Steve Culp, Accenture Spring opened with the G-20 Summit in London, where world leaders agreed to extend financial regulation to all systemically important institutions, take a common approach to cleaning up toxic assets, and...

Financial Misconduct is Not Just a Civil Matter.
June 1, 2009... Byline: Douglas L. Davies and Laura Marquez-Garrett, Foster Pepper PLLC The FBI is shifting more than $75 million in resources from counterterrorism work to help sort through what has been characterized as "the wreckage of the financial...

TRADE: Trying to Rehabilitate Trade Finance; The secondary market ground to a halt last fall. Now it's coming back, with the help of the IFC, the U.S. Import-Export Bank and other export agencies.
June 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Rosta World trade is declining this year for the first time since 1982, and by a projected nine percent, according to the World Bank - the steepest plunge since World War II. A large part of this drop has to do with the deep...

Protectionism is not Self-Defense; It may be politically popular but promoting it would surely deepen the recession.
June 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Rosta Former President George W. Bush increased 300 tariffs in the final days of his administration; Congress successfully inserted "buy-America" provisions into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; French President...

FEE INCOME: Overdraft Anxiety; The government wants to protect the consumer, but changes to Reg E could spell the end of some free services.(Electronic Fund Transfer Act)
June 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian Overdraft fees not only generate significant noninterest income for banks, they help subsidize other services, such as free checking and online bill payment. But if the Federal Reserve follows through on...

Hits and Has-Beens.(Front and Center)(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... Bank of America shareholders stripped president and CEO Ken Lewis of his role as chairman. Walter Massey, a director, has been appointed chairman. Laurence Madsen, Masaya Okoshi and Sean George were hired as managing directors in New York...

Fresh Ink.(FCB Florida Bancorp )(Anderen Financial )(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... FCB Florida Bancorp in Orlando is buying Anderen Financial of Palm Harbor for approximately $54 million in common stock. Anderen has $110 million of assets. Glen Allen, Va.-based First Capital Bank, which has $432 million of assets, is...

Spinning Turnstile at Goldman Puts Spotlight on TARP Impact.
June 1, 2009... Byline: Glen Fest Like a lot of top Wall Street banks this year, Goldman Sachs has seen an exodus of top talent. International asset manager Suzanne Donohoe's departure for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in February led off a month-long...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Brief article)
June 1, 2009... M&T Bank's Robert Wilmers is not one for pulling punches, so we always look forward to hearing what he has to say at his company's annual shareholders' meeting. The Buffalo banking company's chairman and CEO was in particularly rare form at...

Back on the Docket; The Supreme Court revisits preemption, two years after deciding a landmark case in the industry's favor. Could the outcome be different this time around?
June 1, 2009... Byline: Cheyenne Hopkins Though reading tea leaves at the Supreme Court is notoriously tricky, several justices during oral arguments on a key preemption case appeared to support the Office of Comptroller of the Currency's ability to...

ONLINE BANKING: Kicking the Buckets: All Users, One Deck; Single-platform deployments enable sharing of feature sets and customizable, interactive enhancements for consumer and corporate Web interfaces.
June 1, 2009... Byline: Glen Fest In a move expected to be consummated later this year, Harris Bankcorp in Chicago plans to consolidate its online banking for consumer, small business and corporate services onto a single platform through S1 Corp.'s new...