The success of a company is built on customer service and its reputation in the community. A business may have built up goodwill over decades, but it could come undone in a matter of hours if a highly-publicized security breach compromises private customer information. This will not only cost a company its reputation, but also tens of thousands of dollars in losses and possible fines.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently announced a multi-state settlement with Lender Processing Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries, LPS Default Solutions and DocX, to resolve claims of unlawful foreclosure practices, including robo-signing. The $121 million settlement, reached by New York, 44 other states and the District of Columbia, will require LPS and its subsidiaries to reform their business practices and, if necessary, to correct documents it improperly executed that harmed homeowners. New York’s share of the settlement is approximately $1.9 million. The action reinforces Schneiderman's role as, in essence, a robo-siging cop -- one of the most aggressive opponents of such practices.

Can you go to your board and tell them how much business you’ll close in the next 30 days – with at least 90 percent certainty?
Do you have controls to make sure that every person who is calling is doing two things effectively: Calling the right people, and secondly, following a process that assures premium pricing so you never have to hear those dreaded words “we can do the deal if we match rates” again?
Most important, is your institution being paid for your unique selling propositions (USPs) – or do your lenders put you in a position of having to turn away deals, or match them every time a desperate competitor undercuts you, hurting not only the borrower, but the bank that got the business (and you, too, because you failed to get that business)?

Two New York-based banks have been approved to convert from national charters to New York state charters. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) approved Jeffersonville Bancorp, Inc. the holding company for the First National Bank of Jeffersonville, for conversion to a state charter effective Dec. 21, 2012, and the bank now operates under the name Jeff Bank. It will fall under the purview of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve Board.

Pearl Kamer, chief economist at the Long Island Association, had sobering news for a gathering of business executives at a recent breakfast hosted by the New York Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth at Hofstra University. “If the country defaults on its debt obligations … it’s going to kill our economy,” she said.
The impact of both Sandy and the Nor’easter that followed shortly after took their toll on the entire tri-state region. Long Island was not spared going over the cliff.
After a burst of job growth during the spring and summer months, year-over-year job gains diminished throughout the fall. Between October and November, Long Island sustained a loss of 3,300 payroll jobs, including the loss of 5,100 private-sector jobs. 6,500 jobs were lost in the leisure and hospitality sector, a category that including dining and drinking establishments. Categories that include various personal services, lost 2,000 jobs between October and November. Hospitals lost 900 jobs as a result of storm damage.

Today's preteens and teens are tomorrow's customers. How do you reach the kids who grew up with the Internet – the iPhone, YouTube and Facebook generation? Youth culture has been ratcheted up to light speed, but the banking industry is slow to adopt new marketing strategies.
One reason is risk. While early adopters gain a head start against competitors in customer retention and acquisition, the return on investment must be evaluated versus waiting for the technology to mature and become commonplace.
“The financial service industry is up against a ‘commodification’ of products and services,” said Michael Seaton, vice president of Digital Marketing at Thornley Fallis Communications, an agency integrating social media with public relations. “New media – meaning social media tools and platforms – provides a range of choices to directly reach out and humanize the banking experience. Transparency and authenticity are front and center and brands must differentiate themselves around their actions, not slogans.”
“The demographics and psychographics of our customers are dynamic,” said Steve Coen, a consultant in the financial industry and retired CIO of Buffalo-w based M&T Bank. “Product and delivery demands are changing, and we must serve our customers on their terms; how, when and where they demand services.”

Online banking is widely considered to be one of the all-time greatest applications of the Internet, yet many banks are squandering the opportunity to add droves of new online customers because they do not offer customers an alternative to signing paper documents to open an account online.

The rumors of the death of the subprime mortgage market are not exaggerated or even untimely. In fact, it seems as if a plague of sorts has infected the industry, and it started with the dubious and sometimes downright predatory habits of many mortgage bankers and brokers. Cries of irresponsible business practices in the industry and marketing schemes that drove lending guidelines are cropping up all over the media nowadays, but it seems like a little of the hindsight is 20/20 type rhetoric.

Since his appointment as the New York State Banking Department’s 43rd Superintendent in March, Richard H. Neiman has had plenty of weighty issues vying for his attention...

Identity theft is widely and correctly viewed as an insidious crime, wherein a person’s good name and financial standing are tarnished, often through the criminal misuse of credit and debit cards. But many of the programs and insurance policies designed to protect a person against the ravages of identity theft are extremely limited in scope...