US Banker articles from March 2009

US Banker archives from March 2009

Stimulating Proposal: Relief for SBA Lenders; President Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, famously tried to abolish the agency, once saying it did nothing but "spray a faint mist of subsidized credit into the weakest and most prosaic nooks and crannies" of the economy.(Small Business Administration)
March 1, 2009... Byline: Alan Kline, Editor-in-Chief Can the Small Business Administration play a meaningful role in jumpstarting the sputtering economy? Jim Leach, a former House Banking Committee chairman believes it can, if banks are given enough...

SECURITY: The Emperor's Old Clothes Still Don't Fit; Another unexpected vulnerability - malware that penetrated a card processor's internal network - showcases again what's really at the heart of security flaws.
March 1, 2009... Byline: Glen Fest With the potential to be the new poster child for data breach notoriety, Heartland Payment Systems of New Jersey responded quickly to its massive security breach. After media reports surfaced in January that a malware...

Word of Mouth Takes Hold in Bank Marketing; To cut through the clutter of traditional advertising, many banks are employing word-of-mouth marketing strategies. Free pizza, anyone?
March 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian Close is only good in horseshoes and hand grenades - well, and marketing, too. If a company gets a five percent response on a direct mail campaign, odds are the marketing department will be thrilled. For TV it's...

AD Beat: Circling the Wagons After Merger; Wells Fargo - and several other banks that recently made large purchases - try to ease customers' nerves with a message of unity. But is that in touch with reality?
March 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian By In the banking industry, there are very few images that invoke a bank's name as strongly as Wells Fargo's stagecoach - especially west of the Mississippi River. After purchasing Wachovia, Wells is bringing that...

Who Will be the Next in Line? Great companies need great leaders. And yet, just when banks most need to draw on their collective talent, many find themselves short on managerial bench strength. Whatever the reason, a lack of preparedness can weaken an organization because a well-planned succession can put a bank on firm footing for years to come.
March 1, 2009... Byline: Michael Sisk Among CEOs, Kelly King is a rare breed. He talks with enthusiasm about the person who will succeed him several years hence, yet he does not know who that person will be. Even more remarkable is that King has barely...

Getting Face Time Online Appealing Yet Ignored; Most Americans are exploring the wonders of social networking sites. Community bankers, though, have yet to jump on the bandwagon and are missing a major opportunity.(Security Savings Bank )
March 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian Security Savings Bank in Henderson, NV, has historically never asked its customers for their email addresses because, like many community banks, it preferred to converse with customers face-to-face, not, as former...

Prepaid Goes Mainstream As Adoption Increases; The prepaid card market has seen rapid expansion thanks to low fees and restricted credit access. Analysts agree that this market will continue to grow despite consolidation.
March 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian For many unbanked consumers, getting a credit or debit card is challenging, if not impossible, so the only plastic in their wallets is a prepaid card. Now, as traditional credit becomes scarcer, even mainstream...

Feds' RDC Guidelines Offer New Options; The FFIEC's new handbook on distributed capture examination may green-light the holdouts on a popular deposit-gathering strategy. Considering that more than two-thirds of U.S. banks are already in the game, it's about time.(Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council)
March 1, 2009... Byline: Steve Bills A new set of guidelines has given bankers a better idea of how regulators will evaluate their use of remote check-image capture services, and it might prompt financial companies to accelerate their use of the...

HSAs Continue Ascension in Spite of Sour Economy; About six million people people have enrolled in high-deductible health insurance plans, and administering banks expect more growth regardless of the political landscape.(health savings accounts)
March 1, 2009... Byline: Anthony Malakian Even with a nation in a recession and a Democrat in the White House, health savings accounts are expected to grow steadily, if not spectacularly, in 2009. As the "war for deposits" drags on, Mark Halverson,...

Community Bank Capital An Investor's Sanctuary.
March 1, 2009... Byline: Jacob Eisen and Tad Gage, President and evp of Capital Insight Partners Nearly all publicly traded financial services companies have seen their stocks pummeled in the last year, but a case could be made that many community banks...

Regulation Redux; The financial system still smolders as policy makers consider plans to prevent the next fire. Will regulators be the world's new heroes?
March 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Rosta After years of tracking, report writing, report filing, documentation, and general paper churning, the Age of Re-regulation is nigh for the financial sector. The current Great Recession has forced the visible hand of...

ACCOUNTING: FASB Hesitates, SEC Stands Still on Fair Value; Expansion of the practice seems stalled for now.(Financial Accounting Standards Board)
March 1, 2009... Byline: Joseph Rosta The banking industry won a minor skirmish in the fair value war in January when the Financial Accounting Standards Board turned down a proposed amendment that would have expanded controversial fair value/mark-to-market...

Scene and Heard.(Front and Center)
March 1, 2009... "The stimulus may be effective, along with additional Fed actions... but unemployment will continue to fall through 2010.'" David Levy, Chairman, Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, on realistic expectations for the Obama administration's...

MORTGAGE: Automating Refi's: They'll be Careful this Time; Depending on the Web to cope with volume.
March 1, 2009... Byline: John Adams It would probably be an overstatement to say refi-hungry mortgage borrowers are stampeding Macon Bank in Franklin, NC. But after the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates late last year to levels that begged for...

Hits and Has-Beens.(John Thain resigned from Bank of America )(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... John Thain resigned from Bank of America under pressure from CEO Ken Lewis. Brian Moynihan takes over as president of global banking and wealth management. Georgetown University banking law professor Daniel K. Tarullo was sworn in to the...

FreshInk.(NewStar Financial Inc. buys Southern Commerce Bank)(New England Bancshares acquired Apple Valley Bank)(Keystone State Savings Bank acquired Northwest Bancorp )(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... 1. NewStar Financial Inc. in Boston is buying Tampa-based Southern Commerce Bank, which has $206 million in assets, for $19 million in cash. Southern Commerce has 11 branches. 2. New England Bancshares in Enfield, CT, is acquiring...

D&O Sticker Shock.
March 1, 2009... Byline: Glen Fest As the credit crisis worsened last year and more and more financial institutions became targets of shareholder lawsuits, many banks were hit with up to 85% increases in their premiums for director and officer insurance....

Noted and Noteworthy.(Interview)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... On Groundhog Day, former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain gave his first televised interview. He could have used an extra six weeks to prepare. In a grilling from CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, the extreme office makeover artist defended his part - or...

Pulling a Plan from Under the TARP; While Congress starts demanding accountability, the Obama administration's proposed antidotes won't be simple, painless or cheap.(Troubled Asset Relief Program)
March 1, 2009... Byline: Joesph Rosta and Glen Fest H.R. 384 - Rep. Barney Frank's medicine for the Troubled Asset Relief Program - was introduced on January 9 and passed the House in 13 days, something approaching the speed of light for Congressional...