US Banker articles from March 2004

US Banker archives from March 2004

Can a Leader Pass Down His Cult of Personality?: Dierberg's brains, tenacity and precision have been crucial to his success running First Banks. The question is, can his cult of personality be learned by others?
March 1, 2004... By any measure, Jim Dierberg, chairman and former CEO of St. Louis-based First Banks, is a hard act to follow. Self-directed and ambitious from an early age, Dierberg took over his family's $10 million bank at 29, parlaying the operation...

Outsourcing: I'm Afraid You'll Have to Order that from Chicago: Deutsche jobs out purchasing from pens to paper.
March 1, 2004... Those Post-it Notes Add up. Banks on average spend $300 per year per employee on office supplies-paper clips, pens, Post-it Notes and the like-and for a global bank like Deutsche Bank, with 56,000 employees in 56 countries, that works out to...

Scene and Heard.
March 1, 2004... "The market makers at Nasdaq just didn't pick up the phone." John Steele Gordon, author and Wall Street h[bar]stor[bar]an, on the 1987 crash and the dark side of electronic trading. "Companies are selling investors on the fiction that...

Credit Report: The Rich are Worried About The Deficit. No, Really.: But does it mean they'll get tight themselves?
March 1, 2004... This year one of President George W. Bush's main goals is to make his hefty tax cuts permanent. It's a good bet to happen, even as forecasts for the deficit this year surge to $521 billion. Results of the recent quarterly survey done by...

Hits and Has-Beens.(appointments)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... AmSouth Bank has named Beth Mooney chief financial officer, replacing Sloan D. Gibson, who is retiring to pursue volunteer service but will remain at the bank for a transitional period. Mooney was senior evp and head of the bank's...

Fresh Ink.(deals of banking industry )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... 1. Sovereign Bancorp agreed to buy Seacoast Financial Services Corp. for $1.1 billion in stock. The deal gives Sovereign a top-four market share in the fastest-growing and largest counties in Massachusetts, including the Boston market. The deal...

Mutual Funds: How Deep Should SEC Go?: Officials mull action, but will new rules work?(Securities and Exchange Commission)
March 1, 2004... The Securities and Ex-change Commission wants improved governance, more disclosure and tighter procedures under new rules to curb abuse uncovered in the mutual fund scandal. The rules will help the SEC bring future enforcement actions, but...

Pipeline.(financial services)
March 1, 2004... BONY questioned by gumshoes 'Various governmental and self regulatory agencies have sought information'-from The Bank of New York-'in connection with investigations relating to that industry,' a recent filing from the firm says. The bank,...

Start with the Internet, Add Investment Bankers, Ken Starr and Enron. Mix.(book: The Roaring Nineties )(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... The Roaring Nineties by Joseph E. Stiglitz W.W. Norton & Company, 256 pages, $25.95 It's not a timely idea to pick up a rear-view look at the last decade of the last century. With suicide bombers in and Saddam out in Iraq, ricin in the...

New York. No Parking. Big Money.
March 1, 2004... To anyone with a Bloomberg machine nearby, it's obvious the man knows from money. Recurring fees? Check. Sexy product? Check. Limited access? Check. Check's in the mail? Check. So as Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, hizzoner may...

No More People on the Floor!: But even as the screws tighten on the NYSE's flesh-and-blood specialists, there's concern about electronics. And is a Goldman guy really going to pull the plug on a Bear guy?(New York Stock Exchange Inc.)
March 1, 2004... The New York Stock Exchange is known for volume and speed. And the time is fast approaching when the specialists, the colorful market makers responsible for the chaos and scramble on the exchange floor, give out a loud, and maybe final, yell at...

Cyber Security: Identity Victims Get Badly Needed Help: A Washington lobbying group is trying to help people recover stolen identities. The effort has some big-time backers, but critics say it's all cure and no prevention.
March 1, 2004... It's a dangerous world for identities. The Internet has revolutionized the business of stealing them, and organized crime groups find the pickings easy. Get one snippet of identification-a Social Security number, say, or even an address-and...

Card Transactions: Foreign Conversions Could Bring New Income: Dynamic currency conversion is gaining interest among acquiring banks. It would have translated into $530 million in income on domestic Visa, MasterCard purchases in '03.
March 1, 2004... Domestic acquirer banks are leaping into the burgeoning field of dynamic currency conversion, which not only promises a new source of income, but offers a rebate-or what some politely call a "commission"-for merchants. Banks earn the fee...

Socially Responsible Funds: All Show, No Go?: Investors who put their money where their politics are don't end up going to the bank for their investments. Considering banks don't have much to offer by way of socially responsible funds, it's not a big loss. What opportunity is there, if any?
March 1, 2004... For all the buzz over the years about mutual funds tailored to ideologies, they have not made great marketing inroads at banks. But that just may be starting to change with corporate governance taking center stage in the business world, say...

AD Beat: BofA's Private Bank Dons the Red Leather: The Private Bank at BofA has been quiet for a while. Now with a new business strategy in full swing, it's going after more rich people and their "complex wealth.".
March 1, 2004... Bank of America Private Bank is launching its first mass media campaign in three years, making a splash in red leather. The national campaign announces a revamped business strategy with more offerings implemented several years ago called...

Shakeout Leads to Shakeup At the Big Easy's Big Bank: Hibernia is smoothing out a bumpy ride, driven with a new look from the boardroom. It's selling like crazy by-get this-focusing on customers' needs, says Paul Bonitatibus, president of consumer and small business banking.(Interview)
March 1, 2004... Hibernia Corporation bulldozed its internal hierarchy after two prominent executives retired last May. Nearly a year into the shakeup, the New Orleans-based $17.7 billion bank is better for it. Cross-selling climbed last year, from 2.4 products...

The Art of His Deals.
March 1, 2004... Jim Dierberg could teach Donald Trump a thing or two about deal-making. Over three decades and 60 acquisitions (plus a few vineyards), he has taken St. Louis-based First Banks from a $10 million institution to a $7 billion one. Not bad for a...

TEXAS BIG: How Big? They say everything's bigger in Texas, and that's mostly true except for the banks. So the race is on to build a standout Lone Star firm. There's plenty of pickins. What's at stake? Pride.
March 1, 2004... Paul Murphy, Jr., is on a subtle quest to create a Texas bank that can compete toe-to-toe with big out-of-staters. Founded by a group of Houston business leaders 14 years ago, his Southwest Bancorporation of Texas now boasts 50 branches, $6...

From Switzerland to You, Here Comes Basel Two: It's a dense raft of obscure rules for a game played only by the biggest banks in the world. But small firms are sounding an alarm, saying the Basel II Accord is rigged against them.
March 1, 2004... Community banks are in for a wake-up call. Many of them don't know it's coming. While they make loans to local businesses and talk about community spirit, a new set of rules is set to make its presence felt worldwide. If the current...

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose? Wamu Finds Out for Sure.: Always looking for new ideas, Washington Mutual is doing interest-rate auctions on eBay. But does it really makes sense, if auctions are designed to reward the lowest bidder?
March 1, 2004... Washington Mutual is trying to spice up boring old certificates of deposit. The seventh-biggest financial company in the country is teaming up with eBay to auction CDs in what it describes as an unprecedented promotion. Experts acknowledge...

The Good Life in San Diego, Sans Benefits: More than a third of workers without health insurance are at small businesses. Union Bank of California sees the numbers in the Golden State, and may have an opportunity.
March 1, 2004... Health care's on the mind of Americans, but not in the budget for most American small businesses. More than 16 million of the country's 43.5 million with no health care benefits work for firms that employ 100 people or less. It's not that...

An Old Business Gets Ever Smaller at the Top: The Bank of New York recently bought two more corporate trusts. The top two players now control more than 30 percent of the market, and that's the way of the future.
March 1, 2004... The Bank of New York, the 10th biggest bank in the nation, is on a roll. Already cresting the corporate trust business, it increased its market share recently in buying the corporate trust units at Fifth Third Bancorp and Bank of Hawaii. ...

Dining by Inches, Appetite for Pounds: For years banks have been investing millions to get into serious money management. Progress has been made, but there's a long way to go.
March 1, 2004... Despite spending millions to tear down barriers, improve marketing and revamp the business, banks have yet to gain much traction in pushing investment services. Most customers don't think of their bank as a good place to handle investment...

Goldilocks and the Oiling of the U.S. Economy: OPEC has maintained its stated goal of $22 to $28 a barrel, yet some fear prices will rise. The effects of this will be masked by the U.S. government's spending, the low Fed Fund rate, tax cuts and, oh, yes, OPEC itself.
March 1, 2004... No other commodity price is the object of as much hand-wringing as that for oil. It's for good reason. The U.S. economy-the world's biggest, let's not forget-relies heavily on oil, importing four billion barrels per year, or about 25 percent of...

How Patriotic is the Patriot Act?
March 1, 2004... It's been more than two years since the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA Patriot) Act passed. Though the deadline for complying with the regulation was extended...

U.S. Banker Advertising Contacts.(Brief Article)(Directory)
March 1, 2004... GROUP PUBLISHER Jay Berfas Thomson Media One State Street Plaza New York, NY 10004 Tel: 212.803.8690 Fax: 646.264.6800 Outside the U.S. Please contact the Publisher U.S. BANKER ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES...

Cashing in on Check 21: Beth Caplow director of product marketing, Pegasystems.(Check processing system for the banking industry)
March 1, 2004... As the industry braces for the impact of check 21, some tout the ability of banks to save millions of dollars on processing paper. Others bemoan the added expense of handling paper checks and images, while trying to keep pace with the growing...