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Cutting Costs (June 2010)

The Headache: “What is your bank doing to save money on everyday operations?” we asked our prescribers. Add your own thoughts right away to the discussions at www.ababj.com/blog/277.html

Remedy 1
Myron Rozell, president, First State Bank of Mapleton, Iowa, $46 million-assets.

Our most significant areas of savings are in marketing and charitable donations, and we’ve made cuts in other areas, too. Examples:

• We are still marketing, but ad sizes may be reduced, and sometimes we’ve cut frequency of advertising to reduce costs.

• Sponsorships are at a reduced level.

• Promotions are more directed, and less lavish—but hopefully more meaningful.

• Each area of supply has been more specifically reviewed for inventory levels, and we’re doing more price-shopping. One example: we went from using a postage meter to using stamps.

• We’ve grown more responsible on maintenance contracts—negotiating harder, exploring alternatives, and balancing remaining value in equipment versus contract coverage and cost.

• We’re still using part-time staff where necessary, but we’ve been limiting the number of hours. For instance, we try to cut back by a half-hour to an hour a day.

• We’ve also eliminated overtime for full-timers.

Remedy 2
Charles G. Brown III, chairman and CEO, Insignia Bank, $132.7 million-assets, Sarasota, Fla.

We’ve been looking for cuts, and one that we’ve found is janitorial expenses. We’ve reduced our cleaning schedule to twice a week, and that’s saving some money.

Weigh in or seek remedies
Send remedies or new headaches to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Additional remedies can be found at ababj.com/blog/277.html

The electronic version of this article available at: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sb/ababj0610/index.php?startid=26