Blog Entries for Bill Streeter

To restore trust, consumer protection must go beyond compliance

bstreeter — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 09:34:06 +0100

Failure can damage brand & shareholder value, KPMG says

Heightened regulatory zeal over consumer protection in financial services requires senior executives in banking, insurance, and investment management to re-evaluate their core strategies, says a new report from KPMG International.

Consumer protection is now a major regulatory imperative in many jurisdictions, part of the process of creating a fair market infrastructure. However, it is not fundamentally a [...]

D.C. OUTLOOK: Payments & Cybersecurity

bstreeter — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 09:57:21 +0100

Ken Clayton and Bill Boger give prospects
for 2013 legislation and more in an exclusive interview

This
article is an online companion to the January 2013 ABA Banking Journal < [...]

AG BANK UPDATE: Rains came too late

bstreeter — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:41:55 +0100

What ag banks are doing to offset effects of the 2012 drought

< [...]

TECH-CHANGE ROADMAP: Are we there yet? Almost

bstreeter — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 10:08:31 +0100

Big data, three-dimensional (3-D) printing, activity streams, internet television, near-field communication payment, cloud computing, and media tablets are among the fastest-moving technologies identified in Gartner Inc.'s 2012 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report.

Targeted at strategic-planning, innovation, and emerging-technology professionals, the report highlights technologies that "will have broad-ranging impact across the business," according to Ja [...]

Watching out for our elders

bstreeter — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 17:50:14 +0100

Bankers man the frontline of defense against elder financial abuse

(This article is a longer version of a story in the August
issue of ABA Banking Journal)

By Ashley Bray, freelance writer

According to a 2010 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, the
population of Americans aged 65 and older is expected to rise sharply to over
80 million people by 2050. With such a projecti [...]

Ohio banker has lots of �pull�

bstreeter — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:17:22 +0100

He’s nearing the half-million mark in shots at clay pigeons

Competitive shooter Courtney Haning says trap used to be considered a gentleman’s sport, and it wasn’t unusual for marksmen to turn out in three-piece suits.

Bankers who golf avoid traps, but competitive marksman G. Courtney Hanin [...]

Giving youth its due

bstreeter — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 01:00:00 +0100

There’s a lot to be said for experience. It’s not overrated. But for a minute or two, we’d like to point out that youth is sometimes underrated by those who are, shall we say, no longer young. The youth we’re talking about here are a group of six bankers—all CEOs or close to it. They were selected for the story about “Next-generation bank leaders” that you can read beginning on page 16. They’re all under 50. Youth is relative, and less a [...]

Wonderful life or strange world?

bstreeter — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:00:00 +0100

You couldn’t have scripted a starker contrast than two presentations at ABA’s National Conference for Community Bankers last month. In his keynote address, Bill Grant, CEO of First United Bank & Trust, Oakland, Md., and chairman of ABA’s Community Bankers Council, used the classic 1940s movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, to deliver a message that character, courage, and service are as fundamental as ever to what community banking is all about.

Just [...]

Don�t handcuff judgment

bstreeter — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0100

The thing that most frustrates bankers about the overlapping realms of regulation and supervision is not the compliance part, difficult as that is. It’s the usurping of their judgment. Unnecessary rules and inflexible assessments hand over judgment to the keepers of the rules, so that even when there is wiggle room, bankers’ hands are tied.

This frustration comes out in this month’s cover profile of community banker Bill Grant, CEO of First United B [...]

Regulation is not ethics

bstreeter — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0100

At a holiday party last month, an acquaintance asked a pointed question about banks. A well-informed person, she was aware of banks’ arguments that overregulation was keeping them from making loans, but she was somewhat skeptical of that argument. When told that indeed such was the case, she responded: “Well, how can banks be made to act ethically without regulations?”

It was a brief conversation, but we made two points in response:

1. Ban [...]

Strength in matchsticks

bstreeter — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:00:00 +0100

Everyone nods when speakers promote industry unity. Working together makes sense. Unfortunately, the emotional pull of “We’re different” can overpower the intellectual argument, at least for a time.

A good counter to that pull is experience—seeing first-hand that unity and cooperation work while butting heads doesn’t.

Also useful is seeing how, despite differences, people can have much in common. ABA’s “Dec [...]

SALES ADVICE FROM CONVENTION CIRCUIT

bstreeter — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0100

Customers are starving for guidance. Try thinking like a dentist • • • It’s experience they’re looking for
“Sales culture” equals “customer experience” to Daniela O’Leary-Gill, and the banker urges fellow bankers to dramatically shift their mindset about what that experience is.

Speaking at this fall’s Retail Delivery Conference, O’Leary-Gill, SVP, small business and personal banking for [...]

If Steve Jobs had run a bank�

bstreeter — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0100

…would you have heard a peep about fees? This was the man who got the world to stop ripping off the “greedy music companies” and to pay for songs downloaded from the Apple iTunes store instead. His company also charged top dollar for its products, which were nevertheless eagerly snapped up by millions. He and his shareholders became quite wealthy in the process.

Despite that, the protesters banging drums in parks around the world would, we suspect, hav [...]

Use it, or lose it

bstreeter — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:00:00 +0100

“Not everyone thinks they are cut out for political involvement.” That’s the opening line of a box in this month’s cover story (p. 30). It’s true enough as far as it goes. Not everyone is cut out for a singing career, either, or for being a Navy Seal. You need to be able to carry a tune for the first, and be able to swim and be willing to fight for the second.

But for many things in life, you don’t really know how suited you are until [...]

Much done, much to do

bstreeter — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 01:00:00 +0100

If you were accused of something you didn’t do, would you stand mute, or refute the allegation? The answer should be obvious. “Truth will out” doesn’t mean one shouldn’t do everything possible to assist the process.

So it is with banks’ reputation. The lead item in Bank Notes (p. 16) reports that the 11-month-old effort to rebuild that reputation, led by ABA Chairman Steve Wilson, has made progress. Many [...]

Death by a thousand regs

bstreeter — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 01:00:00 +0100

It’s not like banks didn’t know this was coming. Still, all the stories about the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act have made it abundantly clear that an onslaught of new rules and regulations has begun. Many of the 3,000 new Federal Register pages written so far to implement pieces of the law have dealt with the more arcane areas of financial services not directly related to traditional banking. But that will soon change.

An excess of [...]

Double whammy

bstreeter — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:00:00 +0100

The marketplace shows no mercy. It can’t—it doesn’t work that way. That fact is often lost on policymakers as they deliberate laws, rules, regs, advisories, and sundry other means to make people and organizations do what they think ought to be done. That attitude has become critical for two reasons: 1. government involvement in business is at a modern high and rising, and 2. the speed of change in business has rarely been greater.

“Y [...]

ATM fee-notice suits continue

bstreeter — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:19:10 +0100
Some possible remedies suggested by two vendors

June 30, 2011

A year ago, in an article on ababj.com, ABA’s Associate General Counsel Greg Taylor warned banks that plaintiffs’ attorneys had begun targeting banks and credit unions for violation of ATM disclosure rules. As he explained:

The Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) and its implementing regulations, Regulation E, require that financial institutions mus [...]

Fair warning�it won�t work

bstreeter — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 01:00:00 +0100
A year ago, consultant Jo Ann Barefoot did the industry a service in her cover story on the emergence of “UDAP”—unfair and deceptive acts and practices—as a broadly applied standard by which banks would be measured. Since then, UDAP has been incorporated into the bank regulatory regime in a big way. The Dodd-Frank Act expanded it by adding the word “abusive” (making it UDAAP) and created a new agency to enforce it: the Consumer Financial Protection [...]

Avoid the size trap

bstreeter — Sun, 01 May 2011 01:00:00 +0100
Big banks, big unions, big government, big business. Each of those terms has come to be a pejorative.

That is slippery slope.

Equally dangerous is the attitude that small companies are “Mom and Pop” operations—that nothing really innovative comes from them, except maybe in Silicon Valley.

Bunk to both notions. The United States is big. It grew to be the world’s largest economy by being successful. The country [...]