US Banker articles from March 2007

US Banker archives from March 2007

This Month.
March 1, 2007... 34 Cover Story: Best Known Korean-American Hopes to Become Mr. Mainstream Hanmi Financial CEO Sung Won Sohn is seeking to make over the biggest Korean-American bank. He faces some stiff competition from Wilshire Bancorp, Nara Bancorp and...

Beyond the Numbers: Sizing Up Top Performers: With a flat yield curve, an increase in deposit pricing and stalling consumer-loan growth, banks face in 2007 even stiffer headwinds-ones far more difficult to control or, even worse, forecast.
March 1, 2007... Despite an increasingly difficult operating environment, record profits in 2005 and 2006 shroud some of the real financial obstacles that bank executives face this year. While many of the industry's largest banks are still riding impressive...

Corporate Governance: In Commerce Dustup, Was Board Doing Its Job?: Even a whisper of "conflict" may be too loud.(investigatiing executive transactions at CommerceBancorp. (Newport Beach, California))
March 1, 2007... As the FEDERAL RESERVE and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency investigate executive transactions at Commerce Bancorp, industry shoulders are shrugging. Why didn't board members more closely scrutinize deals between the bank and...

Scene and Heard.(EverBank Direct's new Internet ad campaign)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... "You can always link to our site to get all the excruciating details that bankers like." -Frank Trotter, president of EverBank Direct, on the bank's new Internet ad campaign. (c) 2007 U.S. Banker and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights...

Hits and Has-Beens.(Fifth Third Bancorp. appoints Kevin Kabat)(Teresa Mullett Ressel appointed CEO of UBS Securities Inc.)(Jarett S. Levan apponted as chief executive of BankAtlantic F.S.B.)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Chase promoted Scott Powell to CEO of consumer banking. David Lowman, who became CEO of global mortgage in November, will now be responsible for home equity and servicing and default, as well as student and auto lending. Joseph Campanelli...

The Dealmaker's Dealmaker: How Sandy Weill Built the Citigroup Brand.(The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy By Sandy Weill and Judah S. Kraushaar Warner Business Books, $32, 544 pages Is there a reason the public should care about Citigroup founder Sandy Weill's banking career? As it...

Best of the Best: Banking's Top 100.(Company rankings)
March 1, 2007... [Ranked by 3-Year Average ROE] The banking industry had a tough gig last year. For proof, take a look at the falling trend in annual return-on-equity figures. USB analyzed the top 100 banks by assets-this year the group ranged from...

As Controversy Dogs Citi, Prince Buys 2 UK Firms, Aims to Cut Costs.(Citigroup Inc. (New York, New York))(Charles O. Prince)
March 1, 2007... Todd Thomson's high-profile ouster from Citi has less to do with poor judgment over his "friendship" with CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo than his spending habits: a wood-burning stove in his Manhattan office, abuse of company jet privileges (by...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Rainforest Action Network campaigns against coal fired power plant funding)(fundraising for nonprofit Bridging)(Arizona court ruling to Western Union Co. on money transfers )
March 1, 2007... The Rainforest Action Network is known for its, um, dirty campaigns and its January 30 stunt at Merrill Lynch's downtown Manhattan office was no different. The demonstration had well-dressed "billionaires" holding bags of coal parading with...

Is London Center of Financial World?: Say it isn't so. With London proclaiming itself king of the financial universe, New York's financial gurus are asking: Should U.S. banks simplify and have only one regulator?
March 1, 2007... Ever since a PricewaterhouseCoopers study let slide that the London Stock Exchange attracted more international initial public offerings in 2005 than the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq combined, the City, as London's financial district...

Enterprise Rights Management: Sealing Data With Yet Another Lock: Goldman Sachs is at the forefront of enterprise rights management, designed to protect the most tightly held intellectual capital. Expect commercial banks to be next in line.
March 1, 2007... When Goldman Sachs is working to nail an M&A or IPO deal, the firm knows even a hint of activity is enough to send markets scurrying and push competitors into position. Loose lips sink deals, so The Firm enforces strict internal lockdowns of...

Email: Don't Shoot The Messenger: Yes, broadband video and marketing blogs are here. Suggestions? First, banks need to finally get email marketing right. And the newest innovation is "stamped" email.
March 1, 2007... A decade and a half after AOL hit the mainstream in the fall of 1989, email is a ubiquitous, essential and inescapable part of daily life. The downside is that of the tens of trillions of emails sent around the globe, the majority are spam....

AD Beat: It's a Bird. It's a Plane. Nope, It's EverBank.: Few bank ads actually pretend to look like the competition. But EverBank's smart new ads are designed to do just that-and then draw consumers back home.(EverBank Financial Corp.)
March 1, 2007... What's the best way to beat the competition? If you're EverBank Financial Corp., the answer is to cloak yourself in camouflage that resembles the competition. Seems like an insane approach in a cutthroat industry, but it spelled genius for this...

Becoming Mr. Mainstream.(Sung Won Sohn's plans for Hanmi Financial Corp.)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... Hanmi Financial chief executive Sung Won Sohn, who made his name as a Wells Fargo economist, is seeking to make over the biggest institution in the Korean-American bank niche. He faces stiff competition from Wilshire Bancorp, Nara Bancorp and...

Established Institution Reinvents Itself as '$2 Billion Startup': With a young CEO at the helm, United Western Bank is reinventing itself. It's embarking on a long-term plan to turn its mortgage-based balance sheet into a more lucrative community-banking one.
March 1, 2007... Denver-based United Western Bank is undergoing an ambitious transition from a mortgage company to a traditional community bank. For investors who take a long-term view of its holdings, the shift could prove to be lucrative. And for banks...

Catch and (Accidental) Release: Capturing Approved Loans: Banks are losing potential revenue even after going through the work of approving loan applications. But is more automation the automatic answer to solve the "breakage" conundrum?
March 1, 2007... Banks are losing potential business from the least likely of places: their own pipelines. These lost loans are not just leads on potential borrowers; they're approved loans that simply never see the light of day as a completed agreement....

Hispanic Demographic Commands Top Attention: The Hispanic demographic is becoming ever more promising for mainstream and niche banks alike. But don't believe the Hispanic business owner is like the average business owner. He's not.
March 1, 2007... Banks are missing a good bet by not allocating enough resources to the burgeoning Hispanic small-business community. Bill McCracken, CEO of Synergistics Research, has surveyed Hispanic small-business owners nationwide to gauge their...

Lawsuit On Patent Technique Upsets Tax Apple Cart: The number of business-method patents has been escalating for years. But now a new lawsuit on a common tax technique is threatening to upset the wealth-management cart.(Altamonte Springs sues John Rowe)
March 1, 2007... The number of business-method patents has been gaining steam for almost a decade, despite escalating criticism from industry groups and the mainstream press. But even while some patent experts say it's simply business as usual in a litigious...

Stemming Revenue Anemia.
March 1, 2007... From 2003 through the first half of 2006, deposits generated more than $100 billion of incremental net interest revenues at little additional cost, representing annualized deposit revenue growth of 80 percent. That was enough to make up for...

Balancing Industry Mandates and Federal Regulations.
March 1, 2007... The sheer numbers of regulations that dot the compliance landscape are enough to give any corporate legal department pause. And if the buck stopped at the legal department, the term "compliance" would have a different effect on corporations,...