US Banker articles from September 2006

US Banker archives from September 2006

This Month.
September 1, 2006... 32 Cover Story: Wachovia's Golden Bet on Golden West Wachovia CEO Ken Thompson, at once confident and folksy, remains unapologetic about Wachovia's acquisition of Golden West Financial Corp., even though some analysts are critical of...

Rants and Raves.(Citizens and Northern Corp chief executive officer Craig G. Litchfield opinion)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Count Me In! I just read the July 2006 edition of you magazine. In the Snapshot section where you list the Top 200 Community Banks, Citizens & Northern Bank is not listed. Surely, even though we are just over $1 billion in size, with 23...

Prosecution: Fourth Conviction in NHSB Case Shakes Up Industry: Did bank do enough to thwart the fraud?
September 1, 2006... Regulators hope the fourth fraud conviction in the 2004 mutual-stock conversion of New Haven Savings Bank to a stock-issuing bank-the first criminal trial involving attempts to obtain pre-offering price shares in a bank case-sends a strong...

Scene and Heard.(Quotation)
September 1, 2006... "Banks need to get educated." -Ralph Lambiase, of Connecticut's Department of Banking, on how NewAlliance Bank didn't see the fraud potential in the NHSB IPO. "If I was the fifth or sixth guy in the market, I probably wouldn't do it."...

Pipeline: Study: Bank Directors' Pay Rates 16th Out Of 21.(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Commercial banking ranked 16th in a list of 21 industries on director compensation in a recent survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Banks paid their directors an average of $139,824 each annually in total compensation, which included...

Litigation: In Rare RICO Case, BNP-P Gets Defensive: Did it help launder Congolese oil money?(Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act)(BNP Paribas)
September 1, 2006... Entangled in a civil corruption and racketeering case in U.S. federal court, BNP Paribas stands accused of helping to divert oil revenues from the Republic of Congo's state-owned oil company. Attorneys say this is the first use of the The...

Hits and Has-Beens.(appointment of George Awad in Citigroup Inc. (New York, New York))(appointment of Paul Fabara as global chief operating officer in Barclays)(appointment of Ellen Costello as chief executive officer in Harris Bankcorporation Inc)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Citigroup tapped former General Electric exec George Awad, who was part of a unit called GE Money, to run its consumer operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Awad will be based in London and will report to Ajay Banga, chairman and...

Fresh Ink.(National City Corp. acquired Fidelity Bankshares)(Prosperity Bancshares acquired Texas United Bancshares )(Iberiabank acquired Pocahontas Bancorp. )
September 1, 2006... 1. National City Corp. agreed to buy Fidelity Bankshares, the fourth-largest publicly traded bank in Florida. Fidelity has $4.2 billion in assets and operates 52 branches along the state's east coast. National City eventually will have 92...

Top 100 Mid-Tier Banks.(Temecula Valley Bancorp.)(Westamerica Bancorp.)(Trustco Bank Corp.)
September 1, 2006... {Ranked by 3-Year Average ROE} Mid-tier banks fight a two-front war. Big banks have more resources and can offer less expensive services, while small banks tout personal service. USB's annual ranking measures publicly traded banks, with...

Word Is... Stock Options Charges Emerge As the Next Corporate Scandal.(Brocade Communications Systems )(Gregory Reyes, Stephanie Jensen , Antonio Canova )
September 1, 2006... Finally, the poised ax has fallen. After months of warning that up to 80 companies are being investigated for manipulating employee stock options, Federal prosecutors in July charged former officers of technology group Brocade Communications...

Noted and Noteworthy.(Umpqua Bank)
September 1, 2006... Umpqua Bank likes to rock the boat. The largest independent community bank in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California released the first compilation album from its Discover Local Music Project at all of its 127 stores and through iTunes....

The Inevitability of Deposit Insurance: After a nearly 20-year reprieve, most banks will soon return to paying insurance premiums to the FDIC. But is the regulator's new formula fair to banks of all sizes?(Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.)
September 1, 2006... Paying for deposit insurance, which has been out of fashion for 95 percent of banks for nearly two decades, will soon be back atop of banks' pile of bills. The big question is: How will it be priced? The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. this...

Multi Factor Authentication: FFIEC Deadlines Are Twisting Up Bankers: The FFIEC's guidelines for adopting multi-factor authentication includes a hard deadline with apparently soft parameters. But will haste produce waste?(Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council)
September 1, 2006... As Frost Bank guns for the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council's finish line, it may be a few lengths short when the fast-approaching multi-factor authentication compliance deadline arrives on December 31. The San Antonio-based...

MasterCard Tweaks Its Image and Rebrands: As MasterCard celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, one of its units is having an identity crisis. The solution? A name change to better celebrate its authentic image.
September 1, 2006... What's in a name? Well, if a firm is looking to expand its identity, everything. MasterCard International's growth spurt has prompted it to change its corporate name to MasterCard Worldwide. What's the difference, you ask? Evidently, according...

AD Beat: MetLife's Take on 'If' Strikes a 'Life' Chord: Tired of Snoopy skipping across your TV screen when MetLife's ads are on? The New York insurer is updating its image. And, yes, the canine makes a special appearance.(MetLife Insurance Co.)
September 1, 2006... After six years of relying on its faithful Snoopy mascot, MetLife is trotting out a new campaign: If consumers are worried about the "if" in "life," they can count on the insurer to help them create their own safety net. It's a clever, elegant...

Southern Exposure.(Wachovia Corp.- Ken Thompson )
September 1, 2006... Five years after its merger with First Union, Wachovia is winning plaudits for top-flight customer service and organic growth. But Ken Thompson's appetite for deals-most recently the $26 billion acquisition of Golden West Financial Corp.-has...

So Far In '06, 212 Deals & Counting: The Capital One and Wachovia deals are the biggest in the industry this year. But financial advisors are finding enough smaller deals to keep them busy.
September 1, 2006... There have been two major financial mergers so far in 2006: Capital One Financial Corp.'s $14.6 billion takeover of North Fork Bancorp and Wachovia Corp.'s $25.5 billion acquisition of mortgage titan Golden West Financial Corp.-enough to propel...

Top 50 Advisors by Deal Value.(Merrill Lynch and Company Inc.)(Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.)(Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.)(List)
September 1, 2006... Bank & Thrift Mergers in 2006 Ranked by announced deal value Rank Firm # of Deals Deal Value (in millions) 1 Merrill Lynch & Co. 3 $35,737.7 2 Lehman Brothers 4 26,250.8 3 Keefe, Bruyette & Woods* 33...

Top Firms By Region*.(The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.)(UBS Investment Bank)(Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.)(List)
September 1, 2006... Announced Total Deal Value Rank Firm Deals (In millions) Midwest 1 Goldman, Sachs 2 $1,411.9 2 UBS Investment Bank 1 1,033.5 3 Keefe, Bruyette & Woods 9 645.3 New...

Top 25 Advisors' Fees.(Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.)(Credit Suisse Group)(Wachovia Securities Inc.)
September 1, 2006... Pending and Completed Deals Announced in 2006 Rank Buyer Target Announced Deal Value ($M) Completed Deal Value ($M) Buyer's Financial Advisors Buyer's Total Financial Advisor's Fees Target's Primary Advisor Seller's...

No Matter the Circumstances, Some Bankers Still Thrive: What makes a successful community bank? U.S. Banker sifts through the chaff to find the three most stellar examples of wheat in the country. But these players have to keep tilling the soil.(University Bank N.A.)(Carver Bank in New York)(Pulaski Bank of St. Louis)(Company overview)
September 1, 2006... In one very real sense, community banks could take a page from the traditional business model of credit unions-serving a niche. According to a round of interviews with community bankers and lobbyists, the successful community banks more...

Banks Refocus Staff and Mutual Funds Sales Surge: Banks are making a fundamental change in the way they sell mutual funds by streamlining the process and unleashing a bigger, less expensive, sales force.
September 1, 2006... Sales of mutual funds at banks have skyrocketed recently, and banks are reporting greater success with annuities as well, while stocks and bond sales are languishing. Sales of bank-sold mutual funds spiked 43 percent in the first quarter...

Burn to Bloom: Is Profit in the Offing?: A new credit- and debit-card enabled offering from Yodlee is a sign the Web-banking industry may finally be emerging from the bill-pay subsidy game. Or is it?(Yodlee Inc.)(CheckFree Corp.)
September 1, 2006... The belief that online bill pay serves as a magnet for retention and cross-selling is the reason-or, perhaps, the excuse-why banks fritter away $4 to $5 per customer monthly on a service that less than half their Web customers use. But...

SWIFT Further Expands Network to Large Companies: The payments network has been easing rules for corporate access, but companies are still not allowed to communicate with one another over SWIFT. Some wonder if that day is coming.(Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication )
September 1, 2006... Brussels-based payments system SWIFT made one more step to better serve banks' large corporate customers when its members recently voted overwhelmingly to create a new "corporate" category. Corporations have been allowed increasing access...

Basel II: Responding to A Whole New World of Risk.
September 1, 2006... Breaking ranks with the international banking community, U.S. banking agencies announced in late 2005 that U.S. banks will be granted an extension to the January 2007 deadline for Basel II compliance by the Bank for International Settlements,...

Know Your Customer, Business.
September 1, 2006... Retail financial institutions today have an increasingly useful, although often overlooked, resource for gaining deeper insights into consumers' everyday purchasing behaviors: debit-transaction data. Over the last decade, financial...