All articles by Charles Davis
Charles Davis
Government assumes majority control of GMAC
Two days before the end of 2009, the US Treasury pumped another $3.8 billion into GMAC, in the process upping its stake to 56 percent from 35 percent; private equity firm Cerberus is the next biggest shareholder with 14.9 percent (see pie chart). GMAC also injected $1.3 billion into its banking unit, Ally Bank, to satisfy the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other regulators and to support its main auto lending business.
New bank launch for the US: GreenChoice
Increased regulatory scrutiny and the growing number of existing financial institutions in need of a white knight have helped make it increasingly difficult to start up a new bank in the US; indeed, in the third quarter only three new banks were formed, the smallest number for more than 50 years. But the green bank model, popping up across the US with a business plan based on a technological commitment to reducing the carbon footprint, may just buck the trend.
The rise of personal teller machines
Charles Davis examines a small but growing trend in the US retail banking market for PTMs, or personal teller machines PTMs let a banks customer using an ATM link with a call centre operator via live video feed and can, according to some of the banks using them, help facilitate customer service and improve sales In the lobby of a southeast Michigan credit union sits what many think is the retail banking service interface of the future.
USAA blazes remote deposits trail
The United Services Automobile Association, the US bank dedicated to providing financial services to American military personnel and their families, has achieved instant success since the August launch of its iPhone app which allows remote cheque deposits Charles Davis reports.Following the runaway success of its mobile banking channel, which attracted over 800,000 users in the 12 months following its launch (see RBI 614), the United Services Automobile Association (USAA) has another distribution hit on its hands with the successful roll-out of an iPhone application (app) that allows cheques to be deposited remotely.
Banking on each other
A number of small US credit unions and community banks have pooled marketing and promotional resources in an effort to take on larger rivals Charles Davis discovers that participants in the programme, run by a company called BancVue, collectively have the fourth-largest branch network in the US Circling their wagons by teaming together to battle the megabanks, US credit unions and community banks are getting behind a communal branding scheme aimed at leveling the playing field a bit.
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Get industry leading news, data and analysis delivered to your inbox
The big interest in payday
The FDIC is trying to open up the payday loans market in the US by encouraging mainstream banks and credit unions to offer competitive repayments terms. Charles Davis talks to Steven Schlein of the Community Financial Services Association of America, the trade group for the payday lending industry.An experimental programme by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has payday lenders seeing red and banks seeing a potential revenue stream Designed to produce less costly ways to provide credit to those in need of short-term loans, the FDIC has worked with 31 community banks across the US in a scheme aimed at making short-term lending profitable enough to attract banks to the market while keeping interest rates low enough to spare financially strapped consumers from even greater pain.
A really strong story to tell right now’
There are 7,691 federally insured credit unions in the US, and, as a whole, the sector has benefitted from strong deposit and lending business in the first half of 2009 Total sector assets were up 7.3 percent to $870 billion, collectively making the sector a key player in US retail banking
Measuring service like fiscal performance
Brent Di Giorgio at Peoples United Bank puts it down to three things, for instance training, training and training.Year in and year out, the JD Power & Associates Retail Banking Consumer Satisfaction Survey proves a simple maxim: good customer service flourishes in mid-sized and smaller institutions, with a couple of big-name exceptions to the rule
Changing the name, keeping the brand
Charles Davis talks to Linda Verba, executive vice-president of retail operations for TD Bank in the US, about the Canadian banks rebranding of its US franchise, Commerce Bancorp When Toronto-Dominion Financial (TD) announced the $8 billion acquisition of Commerce Bancorp in October 2007 (see RBI 580) the deal had all the makings of a difficult integration: a somewhat staid Canadian parent buys a wildly successful US bank with a distinctly unconventional footprint and an intensely loyal customer base.
What about the other 8,000 banks?
But of the 8,643 banks in the US, 8,324 are community banks, and 92 percent of all US banks have assets of less than $1 billion