Banking Wire articles from January 2004

Banking Wire archives from January 2004

A Credit Union Conversion 'Poison Pill': WSECU Board To Vote This Week On Proposal.
January 2, 2004... As controversy swirls around credit unions that have converted or are seeking to convert to a bank charterone credit union here is poised to make it more difficult for the co-op to morph into a bank in the future. Washington State...

Making An IT List, Checking It Twice: CU Execs Asking Santa For Web-Driven Technologies.
January 2, 2004... Forget Game Boy and Bratz-topping The Credit Union Journal's Technology Wish List this season are "hot'' Internet enhancements backed by shiny, new core system improvements. These credit union "toys" support the "competitive advantage...

Four New Names Surface: Candidates Rumored To Be On List For NCUA Board Post.
January 2, 2004... Several candidates have apparently thrown their hats into the ring for the NCUA board seat currently occupied by Chairman Dennis Dollar, whose six-year term on the three-member panel expired last April, according to several sources. Among...

WesCorp, 4 Calif. CUs To Self-Insure On Workers' Comp.
January 2, 2004... Frustrated over the soaring cost of workers' compensation coverage, WesCorp FCU and four large California credit unions have joined to form their own self insurance group to cover workers' claims. The new cooperative is an outgrowth of...

Mo. Banks Win Bid To Challenge CU's Field of Membership.
January 2, 2004... The state Supreme Court last week opened the door to bankers' appeals on field of membership by ruling that the bankers have proper legal standing to challenge rules and policies issued by the state's credit union regulator. Up until now,...

ON DEADLINE.
January 2, 2004... 2003 The Year Of League President Turnover WALLINGFORD, Conn.- Kevin Stewart has become the third league president in a month to announce he is leaving the job. Stewart has resigned as CEO of the Connecticut Credit Union Association...

Blaine To Debate ABA Chair During CUNA Conference.
January 2, 2004... Jim Blaine, the president of State Employees Credit Union and a frequent columnist in The Credit Union Journal, will square off with the chairman of the American Bankers Association in a debate over credit union issues during CUNA's upcoming...

Utah CU Nemesis Could Get Backing From CUs.
January 2, 2004... The Speaker of the House in Utah, Marty Stephens, who has been a consistent critic of credit unions, has resigned his position as vice president of Zions Bank in order to campaign full-time for governor. Local media has reported that Stephens...

Home Equity Lines Are Up As Home Values Increase.
January 2, 2004... Americans are increasingly tapping their home equity to finance purchases. The Consumer Bankers Association has released new data showing that during the second quarter of this year the size of home equity lines and loans increased from the...

How to Stop Payroll Fraud.
January 2, 2004... Fraud of one type or another occurs in almost every business today, costing American businesses about six percent of revenues, or $600 billion annually, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Small businesses are often the...

Could ET Phone Home If He Encountered Your Phone System?
January 6, 2004... We all know how important that first impression can be. Whether it's the first view your member sees when they walk into a branch or the logo of your credit union, it's all part of your brand and must present the right image immediately. When...

Why 1 Ark. CU Has Gone To 96-Month Auto Term.
January 6, 2004... Arkansas Federal Credit Union has joined a handful of financial institutions across the country in "making cars more affordable" by offering 96-month auto financing. The $364-million credit union, which serves 58,000 members worldwide, is...

Wescom Selected To Provide CU Services To Mitsubishi.
January 6, 2004... Wescom Credit Union received an early Christmas present one week before Thanksgiving. The $2.5-billion credit union that serves 200,000 members was selected by Mitsubishi Motors North America to provide credit union services for employees at...

Product & Service.
January 6, 2004... Affinity FCU Selects AGAC BASKING RIDGE, N.J.-The $1.3-billion Affinity FCU has selected American General Assurance Company (AGAC), part of American International Group, Inc. (AIG), to service Debt Protection programs to its membership....

Bank VA Sales Off at Nationwide.
January 6, 2004... A precipitous drop in variable annuity sales left Nationwide Financial Services Inc.'s third-quarter overall annuity sales through banks down 18% from the second quarter. The Columbus, Ohio, insurer had $756 million of annuity sales...

New Products.
January 6, 2004... Fleet Boston's Columbia Management Group is offering a 529 College Savings Program Advisor Plan in New York that features proprietary funds from Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and other firms, in addition to Columbia's small-cap, mid-cap and...

Communication is Key to Minnesota Broker's Practice: Whether he's talking to Tammy Faye or a local airline pilot, Jim Wiekamp knows how to engender trust.
January 6, 2004... James Wiekamp knows how to think on his feet - and how to appreciate what's really important. Just after noon on February 26, 1993, Wiekamp, then a Dean Witter broker in Rochester, Minn., was enjoying a farewell luncheon at Windows on the...

Trust: Queen City Stays on Top: Money may be lost, but players keep playing.
January 6, 2004... It's tough to stay up in a down market, but in the close world of personal trust management, Charlotte institutions are holding their own. Wachovia and Bank of America are number one and two in holding managed assets of personal trust and...

Fresh Ink.
January 6, 2004... 1. Brooklyn-based Independence Community Bank agreed to buy Staten Island Bancorp for $1.5 billion in cash and stock. About 60 percent of the new bank's $9 billion loan portfolio will be commercial and about 70 percent of its $9 billion deposit...

Mergers & Acquisitions: Ad Campaigns Forge Ahead: BofA-Fleet merger doesn't halt marketing efforts.
January 6, 2004... Bank of America bought a mixed bag of marketing when it inked the deal with Fleet Bank. But it will be at least until the end of the quarter before the banks start hashing out when the Fleet name will fade and how efforts like Derek Jeter...

The Gen X Factor: Why Banks Can't Afford to Ignore the Post-Boomers.
January 7, 2004... Given the sheer number of Baby Boomers, it's no wonder that the smaller Generation X - those born between 1961 and 1981 and now between 22 and 42 years old - often is overlooked. But these up-and-comers are not the slackers or have-nots that...

How Trust is Morphing Into Wealth Management: Demolish the product silos, add training and a commitment to providing objective advice, and you can create a profitable way to serve affluent clients.
January 7, 2004... Not too long ago, trust departments were the sluggish backwaters of banking. No longer. Over the past five years, bank managers have come to perceive their trust departments not as the staid home of custody and administration agreements but as...

Colonial's Bank-Centric Strategy Consistently Bolsters Earnings.
January 7, 2004... While Wall Street firms saw their earnings leap in 2003 - largely as a result of institutional business - Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial Brokerage consistently boosted its income by selling retail products and by rapidly growing its sales...

One Credit Union's MATRIX For Avoiding Business Interruptions.
January 7, 2004... The Matrix is everywhere at Eastern Financial Florida Credit Union (EFFCU). EFFCU's own business continuity spreadsheet, dubbed The Matrix, "assures the organization's ability to offer products and services following a serious business...

The 2003 Credit Union Journal Technology Panel.
January 7, 2004... The following are members of The Credit Union Journal's Technology Panel. They are all given the opportunity to participate in responding to reader questions, in addition to providing input to The Journal on our technology coverage. John...

Technology News.
January 7, 2004... It's All Spam-Except When It's From My Credit Union WASHINGTON-Consumers despise spam in their e-mail, but desire certain communications from their credit union, according to a new survey. A new report from Callahan & Associates has...

Sales Performance Tool Seeks To Consolidate Info.
January 7, 2004... A new sales performance tool for the MEMBERS Financial Services program moves beyond static data reporting and allows credit unions to consolidate information and analyze trends, according to CUNA Mutual Group. The tool, CU Navigator, is a...

Pipeline.
January 7, 2004... Too Much of a Good Thing Deploying and managing record levels of equity capital will be one of the key challenges of the banking industry this year, said Barry Kroeger, Ernst & Young's Americas director of banking. Kroeger spoke at a press...

Prophecy in Green: Chicago Economists Forecast a Bright 2004: But will Powell replace Cheney on GOP ticket?
January 7, 2004... The University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business prides itself on the veracity of its famed forecasts for the national and global economies. And why not? With six Nobel prizes in economics under its belt-more than any other U.S....

Christos Cotsakos, on Draught.
January 7, 2004... When Christos Cotsakos stormed Wall Street's pinstriped barricades at the helm of E*Trade, it must have seemed like a dream. It turns out he lived in one, too. Ritzy Atherton's La Maison des Reves, a "House of Dreams" for Cotsakos during...

The Hartford's Bank Focus Pays Off: Insurer's commitment to selling life policies through banks hit stride in 2003.
January 8, 2004... Efforts by The Hartford Financial Services Group over the last several years to bolster distribution through the bank channel paid off in 2003. The insurer, without its own stable of career agents, began moving into the bank channel about seven...

How Relationships Pay Off.
January 8, 2004... November paid off for Scott Mayo exactly as planned. Mayo, a senior financial advisor with Investment One at First National Bank of Omaha, produced the revenue he and his assistant projected, as well as their cross-referral and training goals....

Free Spanish Version Of Website Seals Deal For Newly Online CU.
January 8, 2004... Many large credit unions don't yet offer it-but $36-million Norristown Bell CU (NBCU) has been running a full-featured Spanish version of its homebanking site for more than a month. "I think it's going to be a real winner," said Helen...

Technology News.
January 8, 2004... Check Imaging Exchange Set MONETT, Mo.-Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. will begin offering its financial institution clients the ability to exchange check images and electronically clear and settle checks through the National Clearing House...

Whether Check 21's News Is Good Or Bad Depends On The Viewpoint.
January 8, 2004... The good news: the Check Truncation Act, or Check 21, will mean checks will clear faster. The bad news: Check 21 will mean checks will clear faster. The view that the newly enacted Check 21 is good news stems from projected reductions in...

2004 To Be Year Of Explosive Growth In Prepaid Applications, Says Study.
January 8, 2004... Credit unions should prepare for a big boom in prepaid payment applications, according to a new analysis. New research from TowerGroup finds that this rapidly evolving payment category is in the early stages of a long-term expansion that...

Noted and Noteworthy.
January 8, 2004... A close look at the Securities and Exchange Commission budget shows where the real muscle is going. Printing and reproduction costs, 2002: $3.5 million. 2004? They're asking $25.2 million. Two years, about 700 percent, and weep for the trees....

There's Muscle, and There's Steroids: The Securities and Exchange Commission is in year two of its he-man bulk-up regime. But in Washington, money isn't always money and strength doesn't mean direction.
January 8, 2004... Last fall the Securities and Exchange Commission had to hire a headhunter to help the agency keep pace with intense pressure to pump up. It had to do so in part because Congress was four months late approving its annual budget. As...

Security: Biometrics Takes Hold Overseas, But Not in U.S.: U.S. banks, tied to legacy systems, are reluctant to start over with what many consider untested technology. Then there's the real bugaboo: privacy.
January 8, 2004... Overseas banks have been very proactive in using biometric products and services for everything from employee verification to consumer authentication. In Europe, for example, where ID fraud is taken as seriously as it is in the United...

Systems Development: BCPBank's Big Fiserv Bet: Officials at bcpbank did a lot of tweaking to its leased Fiserv banking platform. Now they hope to market their five-module Compta collection to other Fiserv customers. Savvy or straying from mission?
January 8, 2004... Like many growing community banks, bcpbank is grappling with the headaches of compliance, customer service and client retention. But unlike other community banks, this upstart's nimble customization of its leased Fiserv platform has been so...

Mutual Fund Marketing Trickier with the Times: The mutual fund industry isn't expanding much these days. Before the recent turmoil, it was a slugfest of giants concerned about scale. It's hard to shine if you're a little guy.
January 9, 2004... Donald Hodges, co-portfolio manager of the $15 million Hodges Fund, has marketing problems. In short, he's not very good at it-by his own admission. The Dallas-based mutual fund is a subsidiary of First Dallas Securities, owned by Hodges,...

AD Beat: Red, White and Blue Collar to Span 24 States: US Bank's poised to pounce on an economic uptick, analysts say, but new national ads are lackluster. Will consumers care about the creative or just convenience?
January 9, 2004... US Bank is making its first national splash with workaday ads that may not set Madison Avenue abuzz, but get the job done on Main Street, where they matter most. The campaign's "several-million-dollar" phase one couldn't be more...

It's Back to the Drawing Board For Finucane. Surprised? Nah.: Fleet chief marketeer and Boston power player Anne Finucane would be pardoned for shedding a tear as Ken Lewis boxes a Beantown brand her team spent years shoring up. She says it's not been in vain.
January 9, 2004... Fleet Bank had managed to keep its brand afloat even while suffering from serious merger foibles-aggressively taking over BankBoston, a beloved local name, among them. Even so, customer approval jumped 50 percent over the last couple of years....

Whispering Campaign For the Well-Heeled: US Trust dumped BBDO for a shop with no financial services experience. The result is a campaign whose print ads have no ink on them. It just might pay off.
January 9, 2004... The ad shop that made Nike a pop icon is now helping US Trust whisper its way into the lives of rich people. New York-based Wieden & Kennedy, which coined Nike's "Just do it," brings avant-garde panache to financial advertising with three...

Credit Nation Goes Quiet: GreenPoint, among others, is calling on MasterCard to help boost flagging use among credit card customers.
January 9, 2004... Credit card issuers are groping for ways to improve business, as U.S. credit card accounts aren't as active as they used to be. Greenpoint Bank has found success in spurring debit card use with the help of MasterCard Advisors, a recently...

How 1 Calif. CU Has Put Out Delayed Transaction Fires.
January 9, 2004... It's out with the old servers and computers, and in with new efficiencies at San Francisco Fire CU (SFFCU). The result has been a drop in the number of delayed electronic transactions, according to Darren Herrmann, vice president of...

Best of Breed Apps Is The Strategy, And Middleware Is The Key.
January 9, 2004... Kathy Bonaventura likes to pick and choose her mortgage platforms- but she also wants the disparate software to talk to one another. "Our members are aware of what's going on in the mortgage marketplace," explained the senior vice president...

For Members, Downtime (Naughty) More Important Than New Gizmo (Nice).
January 9, 2004... It's that time of year: time for making wish lists filled with gifts we hope to receive. But instead of a list of "nice-to-have" gifts, credit unions should create a list of "must-have" strategies to ensure high availability in 2004....

CU Journal Technology Panel.
January 9, 2004... What would you advise our credit union to ask Santa for this year in terms of implementing a new or developing technology solution, or strategy for redeploying an old solution in a new way in 2004? Terry Treadwell, Summit Information...

The CUJ Daily.
January 9, 2004... Pentagon FCU In Another Merger ALEXANDRIA, Va.-Pentagon FCU, the country's third-largest credit union, has agreed to merge with D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center FCU, the fourth credit union it has acquired in the past 13 months. ...

A Good Year.
January 12, 2004... The early days of January truly feel like a blank slate. The color of the holiday season is behind us, bleak winter days lie ahead of us and the unmarked pages of our calendars stare back at us awaiting activity. It's the perfect time to wonder...

Bank-Owned TPMs Gaining Steam.
January 12, 2004... When First Community Bank, a $1.5 billion institution in Blue Field, Va., wanted to offer securities, it considered starting its own broker- dealer or contracting with a third-party marketer. But after deciding that creating its own...

Branch Automation: A Bank for the Next Century: Umpqua and others are going high tech.
January 12, 2004... Picture this: as you walk into the bank lobby, a flat screen TV beams the latest financial news. Soothing music rises as you continue inside toward a grand space of high ceilings and modern decor. If there are no vacancies at the computer cafe,...

Instant Messaging: IM Regs Loom For Wall Streeters.
January 12, 2004... Until SEC acts, firms follow NASD guidelines instant messaging has become an instant hit in the capital markets arena, with more than 80 percent of traders using it to some extent, and firms are battling internally over how best to comply with...

Freddie Mac To Pay $125M To Settle Fraud Charges.
January 12, 2004... In an effort to close the books on the broad accounting scandal, Freddie Mac agreed last week to pay $125 million to settle charges that it manipulated earnings over the past three years. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,...

Community Page.
January 12, 2004... SWCFCU Awards Three Cool Kids WHEELING, Penn.-Steel Works Community Federal Credit Union awarded Toys R Us gift certificates to three students for continuing to make deposits at the Cool Kids student banking program at Bethlehem Elementary...

Conversion Convictions Proponent Faces Off With Opponents.
January 12, 2004... The man who says he's responsible for helping 27 credit unions convert to a mutual bank charter faced his critics here. During the CUES CEO Network, Alan Theriault, a Maine-based consultant who specializes in and advocates such conversions,...

Consultant Responses To CU CEO Questions About Conversions.
January 12, 2004... NAPLES, Fla.-During a recent CUES meeting, CU CEOs had these questions about charter conversions for consultant Alan Theriault: Q: Who owns the capital? Theriault: The members have a liquidation right to the capital. If it were...

Dog Days?
January 12, 2004... Phillip Humann's bulldog determination to remain independent may not stop what some argue is inevitable: SunTrust's disappearance from the banking landscape. But if the purchase of the Atlanta bank is a foregone conclusion, what it means to the...

Local Banks Rise in Wake Of Bigger-is-Better Mindset: It's the little things that make a big impression. Community banks like Macatawa Bank can prosper-and beat bigger rivals-by ignoring phone calls when dealing with customers.
January 12, 2004... The idea of big acquirers staking their claims in western Michigan is nothing new. Indeed, so many have come over the years that the landscape is thoroughly dotted with out-of-state banks, Chicago's Bank One and Cleveland's National City...

Bank VA Sales Off at Nationwide.
January 13, 2004... A precipitous drop in variable annuity sales left Nationwide Financial Services Inc.'s third-quarter overall annuity sales through banks down 18% from the second quarter. The Columbus, Ohio, insurer had $756 million of annuity sales...

New Products.
January 13, 2004... Fleet Boston's Columbia Management Group is offering a 529 College Savings Program Advisor Plan in New York that features proprietary funds from Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and other firms, in addition to Columbia's small-cap, mid-cap and...

Mortgage: E*Trade's Moving Mortgage Parts: Risk tech boosts portable mortgage biz.
January 13, 2004... E*trade is one of the few financial institutions-if not the only one-that's selling a new mortgage product that uses the latest in risk management technology to offer borrowers the chance to keep today's near-record-low mortgage rates for the...

Firing Line: Promises, Promises. A Fresh Start in the New Year.
January 13, 2004... No one talks about new year's resolutions anymore-a signal that people have either given up making promises too grandiose to keep, or have become smarter in achieving their goals and leaving the proclamations of what's to come for those...

Won't Be Home For Christmas: CU Employee Who Lost Everything In Fires Remains Thankful.
January 13, 2004... The home and possessions of Sandra and Larry Sedor were destroyed by California's wildfires. This cross is one of the only things to survive the flames. Sandra is an employee at Arrowhead Credit Union. Many people might think Sandra Sedor...

A Year's Worth Of Giving: Journal Pages Record $7M In Donations.
January 13, 2004... For credit unions, apparently the holidays don't just begin and end in December. During 2003 credit unions across the country helped make wishes, stuff buses and feed the hungry. As readers are aware, each week The Credit Union Journal...

Group Wants Recall Of Wash. CU Board.
January 13, 2004... A group of Columbia Credit Union members has begun a campaign to reverse the credit union's planned conversion to a mutual savings bank. The group, calling itself Save Columbia Credit Union, has begun a petition drive aimed at forcing the...

CU Gets Lesson In Demand For Vaccine.
January 13, 2004... One credit union here got a strong dose of the public's concerns over a flu epidemic. When the Department of Public Health asked Twin Cities Co-ops FCU to host a flu shot clinic for the second year in a row, the staff was happy to oblige....

Time is of the Essence When Brokering Deals: RBC Mortgage is betting the best way to boost mortgage volume in a cooling market is by cozying up to brokers. So it's offering them access to its Internet technology.
January 13, 2004... RBC Mortgage is playing for time in a game where the shot clock keeps getting shorter. But players in the mortgage business know if speed and ease of fulfillment can be added to a fair and competitive offer, a closed mortgage is that much...

SBA's Hector Barreto Revs Economy's Engine.
January 13, 2004... Few in government are doing more to spur small business than the former Kansas City entrepreneur now heading the Small Business Administration. The upside for lenders is more access. The U.S. Small Business Administration's top spot was...

Communication is Key to Minnesota Broker's Practice: Whether he's talking to Tammy Faye or a local airline pilot, Jim Wiekamp knows how to engender trust.
January 14, 2004... James Wiekamp knows how to think on his feet - and how to appreciate what's really important. Just after noon on February 26, 1993, Wiekamp, then a Dean Witter broker in Rochester, Minn., was enjoying a farewell luncheon at Windows on the...

The Gen X Factor: Why Banks Can't Afford to Ignore the Post-Boomers.
January 14, 2004... Given the sheer number of Baby Boomers, it's no wonder that the smaller Generation X - those born between 1961 and 1981 and now between 22 and 42 years old - often is overlooked. But these up-and-comers are not the slackers or have-nots that...

....NewsMakers....NewsMakers....NewsMakers....
January 14, 2004... Fidelity Info Buys CDS Fidelity Information Services, a division of Fidelity National Financial, has acquired Customized Database Systems. CDS offers front- office software for the loan syndication and trading markets. The merger creates...

Security: New PayPal Virus Quakes Industry: Firm to release anti-virus client software soon.
January 14, 2004... Paypal is fighting off a new e-mail worm, Mimail.J, which displays a fake PayPal credit card verification window to accountholders. Industry observers, noting that 10 new viruses are found daily on the Web, say Mimail indicates a new breed...

First Data To Sell Its Stake In NYCE.
January 14, 2004... Payments processing giant First Data Corp. agreed last week to do what it said for seven months it wouldn't do-sell off its majority stake in the NYCE electronics funds transfer network-in order to facilitate its merger with Concord EFS, the...

ON DEADLINE.
January 14, 2004... 3 Comm. Charters OK'd; Total Now Exceeds 500 ALEXANDRIA, Va.-The NCUA board last week, in its final meeting of the year, approved three more large conversions to community charters, making 123 conversions approved this year-the most ever....

Cell Phone Services Increasingly Seeking CU Partners.
January 14, 2004... Two separate cellular phone providers have recently tapped into the credit union community with offers to provide members with discounted wireless services. Under an agreement between Sprint and the Michigan Credit Union League's CUcorp,...

PC Theft Leads To Security Review.
January 14, 2004... California Credit Union is looking at ways to increase security at its headquarters here following a recent break-in and robbery. Steve O'Connell, California CU's chief financial officer, told The Credit Union Journal there will be many...

This Money-Go-Round Goes Some Strange Directions: Forget the barroom or the holiday dinner table. The best fight is on Wall Street. Subpoenas are flying, rumors are milling and fines are getting paid. But who picks up the check?
January 14, 2004... The fines against mutual fund companies are getting scrutiny from all sides. News accounts report the latest breeches, often with some industry sage noting that wrongdoing has been a long-time problem. Some regulators have been...

Traders Get Added Power, Profits from Automation: A customized trading system could mean the difference between being able to adapt to market conditions changing by a fraction of a second or missing an opportunity.
January 14, 2004... Some industry players see the future of automated trading as an "arms" race, with firms spending increasingly large sums honing highly advanced machines to give themselves a competitive advantage. Yet the ability to profit depends on human...

How Trust is Morphing Into Wealth Management: Demolish the product silos, add training and a commitment to providing objective advice, and you can create a profitable way to serve affluent clients.
January 15, 2004... Not too long ago, trust departments were the sluggish backwaters of banking. No longer. Over the past five years, bank managers have come to perceive their trust departments not as the staid home of custody and administration agreements but as...

Colonial's Bank-Centric Strategy Consistently Bolsters Earnings.
January 15, 2004... While Wall Street firms saw their earnings leap in 2003 - largely as a result of institutional business - Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial Brokerage consistently boosted its income by selling retail products and by rapidly growing its sales...

CheckFree Web 4.0 Hits Street for Bank Clients.
January 15, 2004... Checkfree corp. has released the 4.0 version of its electronic billing and payment technology platform and service, CheckFree Web. The new version makes it easy for consumers to move from enrollment and setting up bill-paying to scheduling and...

Odds & Ends.
January 15, 2004... Mobile Sense, a U.K.-based wireless payment provider, has licensed Sanchez Profile, an integrated, on-line core banking product marketed by Computer Associates. The Sanchez/Mobile Sense product will begin accepting mobile "top up" transactions...