Jeff For Banks

MARCH 22, 2010

'I recently read, and subsequently reviewed (see post link below), The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence. In that book, the authors cited FirstMerit Bank as an example of a financial institution that implements Nordstrom-like tenets throughout their company. One concept mentioned was a competition for Best Branch. This got me thinking of how community banks could create an objective incentive system for branch personnel to culminate in the awarding of “Best Branch”.

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Jeff For Banks

MARCH 9, 2010

'A few weeks ago, a nice woman from Sovereign Bank called our home with news that, based on our relationship with the bank, we were pre-approved for a home equity loan. The problem… my wife and I don’t bank at Sovereign. They called for our twenty year old daughter who had a checking account with them. As far as I knew, our daughter had no home to borrow against.

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Jeff For Banks

MARCH 27, 2010

'Regulators have been particularly harsh to those banks whose business plans call for other-than-traditional deposit acquisition. If your bank has brokered deposits, Internet deposits, jumbo CDs, rewards checking, and in some cases CDARs, a regulator near you may be calling to order you to seek more traditional funding. This line of reasoning centers on cost of deposits and equates high-cost deposits with less loyal customers… commonly referred to as “hot money”.

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Jeff For Banks

MARCH 25, 2010

'A bank CEO at a strategic planning retreat opined: it is far more productive to implement a disciplined calling effort than to attend community events. Yet community involvement continues to be cited by community financial institutions as something that distinguishes them from large banks. Who is right? In its most basic form such as deciding whether to attend a local Rotary Club event or to spend those two hours calling on clients and prospects, I would agree with the bank CEO.

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Join us in this webinar, where we share best practices on how to think about the reconciliation work each month, when best to do reconciliations, how they should be prepared, and some common pitfalls to avoid. Learning Objectives: This course objective is to understand how to properly prepare and review balance sheet reconciliations and its impact on the financial statements.

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Jeff For Banks

MARCH 18, 2010

'B+ This book was written by: 1) an author that is on the speaking circuit regarding the Nordstrom Way; and 2) a former long-term Nordstrom employee. So in terms of expertise on how the famous department store serves customers to drive sales, these guys have it. I have spoken and written about how banks lack the proper training, motivation/incentives, and expertise to become an advisory industry.

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Jeff For Banks

MARCH 13, 2010

'When Milton Friedman penned his 1970 editorial in the New York Times regarding the social responsibility of business, there was much political upheaval against government and business by the newly enlightened hippie-set. His conclusion remains true, however, as much then as now: business has no social responsibility except to maximize profits within the laws and ethical norms of the society in which it operates.

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Jeff For Banks

MARCH 7, 2010

'I collect quotes from a variety of sources to remind me of knowledge imparted to me by smart people. Since my memory is relatively weak, I subscribe to the theory that those that forget history are bound to repeat it. So my quote database is a compendium of reminders of historical facts or events that, if forgotten, ultimately lead to a repeat of poor results.

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Jeff For Banks

MARCH 3, 2010

'Alex Pollack, a resident fellow at The American Enterprise Institute, had a sobering editorial in the March 3, 2010 American Banker. The context of his commentary was on the bubble that burst in the residential real estate market, and the more methodical decline in commercial real estate. He rattled off sobering facts: fifty five percent of commercial bank loans are tied to real estate.

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