Sunday, August 29, 2004
Touting personal service, offices are sprouting like weeds.
BY BOB SHAW, Pioneer Press
Don't ask Tom Mork how he got the money to build his new bank.
The question to ask is: Why?
There are already 16 bank offices in Lakeville. Indeed, Twin Cities suburbs are teeming with them, doubling in 10 years. Suburbs have replaced St. Paul and Minneapolis as banking centers — most suburbs have far more bank offices per capita. Stillwater, for example, has four times as many as St. Paul.
It's common to see three or four banks stacked up at one intersection, as gas stations used to be.
But Mork is undaunted.
"You aren't the first one to say I am crazy to do this," he said, stepping over a puddle as he gave a tour of what will soon be Lakeview Bank.
He can win in a hyper-competitive environment, he says, because he is offering personalized, friendly service. Sound familiar? His competitors say the same thing.
But they can all win, say banking experts, because convenience and face-to-face friendliness are trumping even such things as fees and interest rates. Other factors are contributing, too — such as a failing farm economy that drives rural banks into the metro area.
Suburbanites are seeing such names pop up as Boundary Waters, Provincial, American, Anchor, Merchants, Sterling, Eagle Valley, Premier. In Woodbury, there are 13 banks and credit unions within two miles of City Hall. Apple Valley has a nest of nine near its commercial center.
The bank officials have one thing in common — they want to be your pal.
That's how customer Steve Thoresen describes his relationship with Brickwell Community Bank in Woodbury. The bank is only 2 months old, but brokerage firm owner Thoresen says the president spent "five or 10 minutes" listening to Thoresen describe his banking needs.
"I feel like now," Thoresen said, "we are friends."
Friendliness is a relatively new approach to banking. Bankers used to believe, back in the Great Depression, that the one thing their customers wanted was security.
Bank buildings were fortresses of strength, often with Grecian columns, designed to scare away thieves. Massive vaults were featured in countless bank robbery movies.
The new suburban banks could hardly be more different.
At Lakeview Bank, instead of hiding offices in marble-floored corridors, Mork will sit in a glassed-walled office by the front door, so every customer will see him. His desk is set at an angle to maximize eye contact.
"I want everyone to think they have a chance to know the bank president," Mork said.
The vault won't be pre-cast iron. It will have an ordinary wooden door. "The windows are wood-framed residential construction, not cold aluminum frames," Mork said.
Customers will lounge in leather-covered club chairs, as they sip coffee from the coffee bar and watch a 42-inch TV by the fireplace in the "hearth room." If the place were any homier, tellers would wear pajamas.
At the 4-month-old Citizens Bank in Lakeville, the indoor mezzanine curves into an amoeba shape, lined with wood and stone accents. A popcorn machine waits by the coffee bar, with yellow and blue halogen lights hovering overhead.
John Johnson, a branch manager in a golf shirt, said, "It's about feeling, service, family. It's about building relationships."
Banks are competing to be friendly, because customers don't always migrate to the lowest fees and loan interest rates.
"What's the difference between their free checking and my free checking?" asked Patrick Pariseau, the president of Brickwell Bank, waving his arms. "There isn't any!"
So the new banks train their employees to be as actively friendly as Jaycees.
"When you walk in the door, we will know your name. We will know how your kids are doing in school or in hockey," said Pariseau. "We will serve you coffee. If you ask us for cookies, we will run out and get you some."
Brickwell's tellers even give dog biscuits to drive-through customers with canine companions.
The banking boom has been a little uneven. In 10 years, Washington County has tripled the number of bank offices to 72. Other suburban counties have impressive increases, too — but the growth of banking in urban counties has been far less, such as the 46 percent increase in Ramsey County.
The suburban banking surge is surprising experts, said Gary Geiger, chairman of the Minnesota Bankers Association and chairman of Heritage Bank in Willmar. In the 1990s, banking futurists predicted that online banking would kill community banks — suburbanites would sit at home and pay bills through distant, centralized banks they never visited.
Today, he said, his customers use the Internet, "but my lobby is as busy as ever," he said.
In some cases, new bank offices are like refugees from a wilting farm economy. Citizens Bank was founded in 1876 in New Ulm, but since then the farmers in the area have struggled — as have the banks that lend them money.
So Citizens has branched out into fast-growing Lakeville. "We don't want all our eggs in the ag basket," said Johnson.
In the suburbs, the bank-building boom has outpaced that of other stores and services. Many fast-growing suburbs have more bank offices than, say, sit-down restaurants.
Yet the bankers continue building.
"With restaurants, tastes are fickle. There is a hot restaurant for two or three years, then the theme concept changes, the management changes," Mork said.
"But money is money. It always has been and likely it always will be."
Monday, August 23, 2004
Signs are prevalent on cash registers and behind store counters, warning of credit card theft. Advertisements warning against identity fraud are increasing, too. But with I.D. theft and credit fraud the largest growing crime in America, the question is, do the warnings work?
BJ's Warehouse recently had thousands of credit card records stolen. The repercussions were huge, forcing many credit card companies to re-issue cards to prevent further damage. The cost varied from company to company. The Pennsylvania State Employees Union, for example, paid $100,000, while Philadelphia Sovereign Bank paid approximately $1 million. VISA and MasterCard lost about $820 million because of fraud in 2003 alone.
Though the advertisements and warnings are about hackers, mail or phone fraud, or simple thievery, the majority of the thefts are done in the workplace with computers. Cyber-thieves, with the technology to crack codes and passwords, are able to obtain the most information. Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, buying preferences, and personal habits are stored in large on-line databases. Instead of getting one person's information, it is now possible, with the stroke of a key, to get information on thousands of people.
Not all the crimes involve actual monetary theft. In a few cases, the stolen information has been used as a way to target people for advertisements, e-mails, phone calls, or future frauds.
The question is not if this type of crime is happening (it is) or if it will continue (it will) but rather how will it affect our economy. It is not uncommon to see teenagers, sometimes even pre-teens, with credit cards. Having a credit card in college is commonplace. But something must change to prevent these crimes.
A return to a cash-only economy isn't feasible. That leaves tighter security measures at companies who take our credit card information — tighter security on databases, at cash registers, on-line, and over the phone. Better protection is imperative if people are to once again feel secure in using their credit cards for purchases. Trust must be restored.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Entrepreneur launches Online program with Prepaid Legal and Identity Theft Protection Services!
Bruce Wahlstrom, founder & CEO of B.W. Associates at http://www.bwassoc.eventwebsitebuilder.com/page/page/1244386.htm, a leading business brokerage partnership in Minneapolis, MN is a launching an innovative Online program promoting Prepaid Legal and Identity Theft Protection Services. The program is aimed at affinity organizations, corporations, and individuals. For details, please see http://www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/bruce40
Bruce Wahlstrom is capitalizing on the opportunity offered by a growing number of corporations and organizations interested in providing Prepaid Legal and Identity Theft Protection Services to employees and Members.
For a low monthly fee offered through voluntary payroll deduction, employees can have access to valuable benefits that cover the most common legal needs they'll encounter.
Employers increasingly understand the savings realized by their employees having easy access to legal services instead of having to take time off for inevitable legal problems.
HOW THE PROGRAM WORKS
The program contains two parts, a legal plan and an identity theft plan.
The legal plan contains five parts including preventive legal services, motor vehicle legal services, trial defense services, IRS audit services and a preferred member discount.
The identity theft plan provides clients with credit reports, credit monitoring, identity restoration and restoration reimbursement.
The plans can be purchased together or separately and run on a month-to-month basis, eliminating the need for employees to sign a contract.
BANK RESELLERS WANTED
This program offers an excellent business opportunity for banks to earn extra fee income. More than half of all households have a legal situation right now. Also, Americans are more than twice as likely to end up in court as in the hospital during the next twelve months.
With Pre-Paid Legal’s lucrative compensation structure, resellers will be paid from $75 to $182.50 on every $26 membership sold. To enroll, go to http://www.prepaidlegal.com/hub/bruce40
INTERNET TOOLS
Mr. Wahlstrom’s marketing program employs the latest Online technology including a co-brandable website for resellers, eMail marketing promotions, superior Search Engine Optimization programs, Internet PR campaigns, and its own industry weblog, "Personal Protection Plus" at http://pplus.blogspot.com
Thursday, August 05, 2004
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