Community Banker articles from August 2004

Community Banker archives from August 2004

A rich tapestry of customers.(front matter)
August 1, 2004... The face of America is changing. The nation is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. And with these evolving demographics, come new customer needs. The United States' Hispanic and Asian populations are growing much faster than the...

America the beautiful.(chairman's corner)(America's Community Bankers)
August 1, 2004... August is a wonderful month for reflecting. Its a time to step back, think about what we've done, and plan for all the things we want to accomplish in the months ahead. With the summer well under way, my thoughts have turned to how we...

Making the leap to greatness.(president's message)
August 1, 2004... We all want to be good at what we do. Community banks want to deliver good products and good services to their customers, and to offer good leadership to their communities. And, as ACB members across the country demonstrate every day, they...

Five years after passage, Gramm-Leach-Bliley act needs fine-tuning, ACB tells Senate Committee.(acb news)
August 1, 2004... The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act reduced the choices available to financial organizations by restricting ownership of newly formed unitary savings and loan holding companies to financial firms, said Harry P. Doherty, first vice chairman of America's...

Basel I capital framework changes would help avoid Basel II inequities.(acb news)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... The current Basel I capital requirements for community banks need to be changed at the same time as the Basel II capital accord is implemented for the largest banks, America's Community Bankers told Congress. "I believe that the...

Bahin and Dayananda named to WHF's board.(acb news)(Women in Housing & Finance)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Two staff members of America's Community Bankers were recently elected to the board of directors of Women in Housing & Finance. Charlotte Bahin, ACB's director of regulatory affairs and senior regulatory counsel, will serve as...

Consumers tutored on credit reports at Homeowners Expo.(acb news)
August 1, 2004... America's Community Bankers partnered with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to sponsor a Homeownership Expo in Miami. Held in June as part of National Homeownership Month, the all-day event drew a crowd of more than 2,000 people....

Professional development.(acb news)(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Calendar)
August 1, 2004... Responding to the Challenges of Today's Community Executive & Strategic Issues Senior Leadership Institute Aug. 8-13 Annual Convention, Market Expo & Directors' Forum Oct. 17-20 Community Bank...

Membership event kicks off ACB board meeting.(acb news)
August 1, 2004... America's Community Bankers hosted a membership reception in Spokane, Wash., as part of ACB's board of directors meeting. Approximately 80 ACB members and spouses attended the event, held at the Davenport Hotel, on June 18. D. Russell...

Flushing Savings celebrates 75th Anniversary.(acb news)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Flushing Savings Bank in Flushing, N.Y., celebrated its 75th Anniversary in June. More than 150 guests attended the event, including (left to right) Vincent F. Nicolosi, John J. McCabe, Gerald P. Tully Sr., John R. Buran, Michael J. Hegarty,...

Mystery solved.(acb news)(Correction Notice)
August 1, 2004... The photograph that ACB published on page 16 of June's Community Banker has been identified as the National School of Banking Class of 1981. The mystery unraveled with the help of john Boucher, president and chief operating officer of South...

Three join the ranks of ACB employees.(acb news)(America's Community Bankers)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Dennis M. Hild has joined the ACB staff as vice president for accounting and financial management policy. Hild, a 15-year veteran of the Federal Reserve System, was a supervisory financial analyst in the bank supervision and regulations...

Offering remittance options can help banks attract Hispanic customers.(nationwide news)
August 1, 2004... More than 6 million Hispanic immigrants in the United States send money to relatives in their native countries on a regular basis. This flow of funds, totaling nearly $30 billion last year, is the world's largest remittance channel, according...

ACB member Alamogordo Federal breaks ground on Otero County's first 'Congress Building America' home.(nationwide news)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Alamogordo Federal Savings and Loan, participating as a member of America's Community Bankers, broke ground on June 29 on Otero County's first "Congress Building America" home. Employees and board members of the $157 million-asset bank in...

The $50 gets a red, white and blue facelift.(nationwide news)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... The newly redesign $50 bill will make its debut on Sept. 28, according to the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve have discussed banks to make preparations for handling the new...

Kids in banking: little bucks add up to big rewards.
August 1, 2004... kids make great customers for community banks, according to Donna Gross, vice president of deposits at Hartford Savings Bank in Hartford, Wis. The dollar amounts of these accounts are small--Hartford Savings sets its minimum balance...

Proceeding with caution: the state of commercial real estate lending.
August 1, 2004... Commercial real estate lending has traveled a bumpy road over the past two decades. "In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the banking and thrift industries experienced, first hand, just how wide the gulf can be in commercial real estate...

A growing group with huge potential serving the banking needs of the budding Asian-American population.(Cover Story)
August 1, 2004... What is the fastest growing segment of the population? The most educated? The wealthiest? It's Asian Americans, and although they make up a fairly small percentage of the United States population-roughly 5 percent-they are fast becoming a...

Gone phishing: helping customers avoid the hook.
August 1, 2004... There's a new threat facing bank customers every time they log onto the Internet. And it's a threat that Affinity Bank in Ventura, Calif., is committed to fighting. "The moment we hear about an attack, we activate a brightly blinking link on...

PCAOB adopts internal control standards for auditors.(compliance review)
August 1, 2004... The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 contained the most sweeping corporate governance and securities law changes in years. One of the fundamental changes was that it included in federal law corporate governance requirements that previously had been...

Small business investment companies offer big benefits.(legal briefs)
August 1, 2004... Small business banking, an area where many community banks see potential for growth, is becoming increasingly competitive. To compete in this arena, many are finding it necessary to offer a complete suite of small business banking products,...

Overdraft programs: moving forward with confidence and caution.(business solutions)
August 1, 2004... Over the past decade, bankers, b regardless of charter, size, or market, have increasingly begun to formalize offering discretionary overdraft programs for their customers, often through third-party bounce protection providers. Offering...

Getting cash before class: ATMs arrive in high schools.(technology report)
August 1, 2004... Are schools the next frontier for ATMs? In the past decade, automated teller machines have been installed in some offbeat places--hospitals, bars, bike paths--so, it was only a matter of time before teenagers were granted the same easy access...

NACHA proposal would automate ACH cash penalties.(technology report)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... Cash penalties would be automatically assessed for unauthorized ACH debit transactions, under a NACHA proposal that, at press time, was scheduled to be released in late July. The proposal will undergo a 60-day comment period following its...

Women and minorities poised to change the Face of the nation's housing market.(surveys & trend)
August 1, 2004... Wondering where to find home mortgage business as interest rates go up? Part of the answer may be in two growing segments of the housing market: women and minorities. According to The State of the Nation's Housing 2004 report released in...

Tips for keeping customers happy during a bank merger.(surveys & trends)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2004... While most U.S. consumers said they were unaffected following their bank's merger, 20 percent said they were worse off as a result, found a recent online poll by Maritz Research. About one in seven of the 1,001 consumers surveyed said they were...

Changing attitudes of customers.(surveys & trends)
August 1, 2004... Fnancial services consumers are becoming more mistrustful, insecure, and hands on, found a recent study by Forrester Research Inc, a research firm based in Cambridge, Mass. A look back at five years of consumer data found that "consumers...

Highlights in the history of black-owned financial institutions.(bank on it)
August 1, 2004... The first black-owned bank opened 23 years after the end of America's Civil War. The need for these minority banks arose because most banks at the time were unwilling to provide capital, credit, and services to blacks. These banks held the...