Bank Accounting & Finance articles from April 2009

Bank Accounting & Finance archives from April 2009

Credit union financial performance: the impact of asset size: bigness clearly gives a credit union advantages.
April 1, 2009... As competitors in consumer financial markets, credit unions are often grouped as a monolith one-size-fits-all player. Yes, credit unions are member owned and are often smaller than their commercial bank competitors. Historically, they had...

Case study: improving branch profitability and service with data envelopment analysis: data envelopment analysis makes it possible to balance branch expenses with service quality.
April 1, 2009... How do you manage and improve the profitability and service quality of a network of hundreds or thousands of bank branches disbursed over several states and countries? This article describes a very powerful technique that helps improve service...

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the U.S. banking industry: the increasing divergence of return on assets and return on equity between registered and nonregistered banks began significantly in 2002.
April 1, 2009... Can the effect on the U.S. banking industry of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) be measured? Many U.S. banks fall under the mandates of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Some do not. By comparing the operating results of these...

Litigation related to subprime mortgages: a review of accounting concepts; subsequent events do not necessarily provide evidence regarding fair-value measurements and assumptions as of the balance-sheet date.(Lender Liability)
April 1, 2009... Of the top 10 subprime originators in 2006, all are facing borrower class actions, four are facing securities lawsuits, five are facing contract claims, and seven are facing employee class actions, bankruptcy-related filings or other...

Using customer analytics to improve customer retention: how much should a bank invest in a customer who is unlikely to leave?(Credit Cards)
April 1, 2009... The conventional wisdom throughout retail-industry circles is that it costs significantly more to acquire new customers than to retain old ones. In fact, among financial-services companies, there is reliable evidence that it costs five times...

Risk management for remote deposit capture: eliminating the need for in-person or by-mail deposits creates both efficiencies and risks.(Internal Control)
April 1, 2009... The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act ("Check 21"), effective in October 2004, paved the way for banks to eliminate paper checks and use technology for processing checks. Remote deposit capture (RDC) is a new technology that facilitates...

SEC report to Congress supports use of fair-value accounting: the SEC staff analyzed a sample of 50 financial institutions to understand the effects of fair-value accounting standards on each financial institution.(SEC Update)
April 1, 2009... The staffs at the Office of the Chief Accountant and the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC staff) delivered a report to Congress as mandated by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008...

Integrating IT in a time of shotgun mergers: legacy connectivity vulnerabilities can expose an acquiring institution to data breaches and hacking.(IT Strategy)
April 1, 2009... In the current financial crisis, there's a lot of rapid merging going on, with huge deals happening so quickly that there s no time to conduct the usual due diligence. This presents an immediate challenge for chief information officers (CIOs):...