Community Banker articles from September 2004

Community Banker archives from September 2004

The cost of compliance.(regulations of banking industry)
September 1, 2004... There is a clear and present danger threatening the future of community banks. This was the warning delivered by John M. Reich, vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., in testimony this summer before Congress. "The volume and...

Taking compliance seriously.(America's Community Bankers-compliance importance in conference)
September 1, 2004... You might think of September as Compliance Month at ACB. First, this month's issue of Community Banker features several important stories about compliance, including articles on surviving today's information technology exams, tackling money...

Community Bank Index goes real-time.(America's Community Bankers)
September 1, 2004... ACBQ has made its debut. The new ticker symbol for real-time, streaming price quotes for the America's Community Bankers NASDAQ Index went live on Aug. 10. Market data providers such as Bloomberg and Yahoo! Finance quickly began...

NCUA limits charter choice, grants a 10.1 million person 'community charter'.(National Credit Union Administration)
September 1, 2004... Recently, America's Community Bankers has taken issue with a number of actions by the National Credit Union Administration. NCUA is the federal agency that charters and supervises federal credit unions and insures savings in federal and most...

Omega performance offers ACB members Tailored Consulting and Sales Training to help boost profits.(America's Community Bankers)(educational training)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... America's Community Bankers has teamed with Omega Performance Corp. in an exclusive partnership to provide community bankers with high-level training and consulting services to support and enhance their banking products. Omega...

Bankers rave over all that ACB's Annual Convention has to offer.(America's Community Bankers)
September 1, 2004... The 2004 America's Community Bankers' Annual Convention, Market Expo and Directors' Forum is just around the corner. ACB is thrilled to host our members and guests in our home city, Washington, D.C., on Oct. 17-20. The event is shaping up to be...

New overtime rules will affect Community Banks.(financial services employees' benefits-laws and rules)
September 1, 2004... Every U.S. worker earning less than $23,660 per year is guaranteed overtime protection, under rules that took effect Aug. 23, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The new "FairPlay" overtime regulations also raise to $425 the minimum...

Changes to CRA's 'small bank' limit cause rift between regulators.(Community Reinvestment Act-regulations)
September 1, 2004... On Aug. 16, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. issued a new proposal to solicit additional comments on the impact of changing the definition of a small bank for purposes of the Community Reinvestment Act. The proposal would change the...

Court rules against law firm for giving bad advice to bank.(Philadelphia court)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... In an unprecedented ruling, a Philadelphia court ordered a lawyer and his firm to pay Republic First Bank punitive and other damages for advising it to approve a loan that went bad. The case resulted in a $4.4 million verdict against the...

South Coastal Bank answers ACB's call for action for habitat's 'Congress Building America' program.(America's Community Bankers)
September 1, 2004... Twelve South Coastal Bank employees traded in their calculators and computers for hammers and nails, volunteering their time to help the South Shore Habitat for Humanity build a home for a family in Marshfield, Mass., on June 9. As the...

Peoples Federal stays the course through community involvement.(Peoples Federal Savings Bank-customer relations)
September 1, 2004... At Peoples Federal Savings Bank, working with the community is our philosophy, and one we've followed for many years. We encourage our staff, from the board to the teller line, to take an active interest in the local community. Doing so...

Mutuals missing out on M&A opportunities?(mergers and acquisitions)
September 1, 2004... Mutuals are far less likely than their stock-held counterparts to pursue mergers and acquisitions as a strategic alternative. As of March 31, mutuals comprised 9.19 percent of banks and thrifts in the United States, and held 2.84 percent of...

All systems are go for Check 21.(Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act of 2003)
September 1, 2004... The Federal Reserve issued the final rules for the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act on July 26, clearing the way for its implementation on Oct. 28. The act, commonly known as Check 21, authorizes the creation of "substitute checks,"...

Staffing for success: how banks put together winning call center teams.(call centers of banking industry based on asset size)
September 1, 2004... Approximately 23 percent of community banks employ call center customer service representatives, according to America's Community Bankers 2004 Compensation Survey, which is being released this month. The likelihood of a bank having a call...

Scaling the compliance mountain: a service guide to banking compliance software providers.(banking industry management)
September 1, 2004... As the mound of regulations grows into a mountain, banks are increasingly turning to automated software as a way to keep on top of compliance requirements. For example, in regards to anti-money laundering regulations, "financial...

Surviving todays IT exams.(Cover Story)
September 1, 2004... Information technology compliance examinations are never something to relish. Recently, however, they have gotten even more stressful because of obligations set forth through the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. "It's three years later, and most...

Avoiding the losers: how to pick the best when buying mortgage loans from brokers.
September 1, 2004... If not for a good catch by its chief lending officer, Acacia Federal Savings Bank in Falls Church, Va., might have been taken to the cleaners last year by a mortgage broker in Baltimore. "We have a broker sign up on Monday," said James...

Turning up the heat: regulators heighten focus on anti-money laundering compliance.
September 1, 2004... Riggs National Corp. in Washington, D.C., learned the hard way that the banking regulators are dead serious about enforcement of anti-money laundering compliance. It was a costly lesson for the $6.2 billion-asset financial institution. In...

Evolving compliance requirements.
September 1, 2004... When the word "compliance" is used to refer to a function at an insured institution in 2004. it can mean a number of different things. Until the relatively recent past. the term meant that the person or the matter had to do with one of the...

Changing regulatory guidelines for bank investment portfolios.(investment management)
September 1, 2004... Like the regulatory rules for all functional areas of banking, the guidelines for investment portfolio management continue to evolve. In recent months, the bank regulatory agencies have issued new supervisory guidance relevant to the...

Immediate action needed to maintain balance in the dual banking system.(legal briefs)(Column)
September 1, 2004... In the interstate banking system created in the 1990s, federal preemption is the ingredient that makes that system seamless across state lines. But only the federal part of the banking system now enjoys this seamlessness. The immediate and...

Protecting against slips and falls.(business solutions)
September 1, 2004... Nearly 12 million people slip and fall each year in the United States. And the majority of those seek medical attention because of their injuries. According to the National Safety Council, falls are the leading cause of visits to the...

Stored-value card use expected to surge among the unbanked.(technology report)
September 1, 2004... Interest in stored-value cards is on the upswing among the nation's unbanked population, according to a study from Celent Communications. One out of four unbanked households will be using stored-value cards by 2006, a jump from 8.5 percent...

Fed to close additional check processing sites.(technology report)(Federal Reserve Banks )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... The Federal Reserve Banks will discontinue operations at nine check processing sites by early 2006, according to an announcement released in August. This comes on top of a series of closures that will reduce the number of check processing...

Shopping for groceries, with the touch of a finger.(Piggly Wiggly grocery stores has installed a fingerprint-scanning payment systems)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... Biometrics received a boost in visibility in late July, with the installation of fingerprint-scanning payment systems at select Piggly Wiggly grocery stores. The regional chain, which has locations in 16 states, will make the payment system...

Changing mortgage servicing technologies and attitudes have lowered default rates.(surveys & trends)
September 1, 2004... A philosophical shift in the nature of mortgage lending, coupled with new technologies, has led to a significant decrease in the number of foreclosures in the last 10 years, according to a July study by Freddie Mac. These innovations have...

Use of bank-owned life insurance becoming more popular among community banks, cash values rise.(surveys & trends)
September 1, 2004... Bank-owned life insurance use is on the upswing, according to a June report from The Todd Organization. Last year, about 43 percent of banks owned BOLl, an increase from 38 percent in 2002, according to the report from the executive benefits...

Ahead of the Curve: women-owned businesses to outnumber men-owned businesses by 2007.(surveys & trends)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2004... The number of women-owned privately held firms has been steadily increasing in the last decade, and is on pace to surpass the number of-men-owned firms in the next three years, according to Financial Institutions Bank on Women, released in July...

What's in a name? Community banker's first installment of "what's in a name?" in January 2004 explored trends in bank names. But sometimes the story isn't found in the trend lines. Some bank names are undeniably unique. In this installment, we spotlight some unusual bank names, and find out how they came about.(bank on it)
September 1, 2004... Systematic Savings and Loan Association Springfield, Mo. * Assets: $52 million Systematic Savings was established in 1923 as Fidelity Savings and Loan, but there was another bank in town with the same name. Sometime in 1924, a contest...