"Community Banks Need to Change the Way They Do Business-Or Risk Failing the Business Community"
Online, July 1, 2010 (Newswire.com) - East Berlin, CT, July 1, 2010-"Community banks need to match their passion for community business with better business banking products to more successfully compete with large national banks," says John Hamby, who ran a successful community bank for two decades and has been a leader in the industry for four. "Failure to make those changes might very well impair the growth of community businesses, and no one wants that to happen."
Hamby, founder and chief executive officer of Advanced Business Checking Solutions (ABCS) of East Berlin, CT, is challenging community banks, which historically have close personal ties to their local communities, to do a better job than they are currently doing.
"Community banks are losing their battle to the large national banks to build and retain business checking balances and non-interest fee income. Furthermore, about 70 percent of their non-interest income comes from penalty charges. That's not a positive demonstration of community support. Community banks can do better than that," asserts Hamby, whose new company has developed supplementary software that can be used to enhance checking features when mainframe systems fail to permit necessary modifications or require long and costly waiting times for effective change.
"Business checking at most community banks has lackluster functionality which hasn't changed very much in over 40 years. This is a terrible disservice to the community bank and to the community businesses they serve," Hamby says. "Our local businesses need the best they can get from their bankers-but they just aren't getting it."
Hamby, a noted community banking advocate who has lobbied for support on Capitol Hill for more progressively sound banking regulations, says that it is not the goal of ABCS to defeat the large national banks-which he adds is an improbable task in any event-but to improve balances and fee income for the more deserving segment of the banking industry, namely, the community banks.
Hamby and his team of experts are now visiting community banks across Connecticut (in advance of a nationwide rollout of the ABCS product line) to encourage them to develop more fee-based services, especially business checking and credit card processing for merchants.
Banks are not permitted to pay interest on business accounts. Therefore, Hamby and ABCS are encouraging community banks to expand their services eligible for fee reduction through the maintenance of larger business checking balances. Regulations allow it but banks do not. Such expansion could include payroll processing, wire transfer, credit card processing, and loan interest. "With enhanced and feature-rich checking, more effort can be put behind the solicitation of business checking, which is the real prize for community banking. This change of focus would return community banks to the days when opening a business account was the keystone of a business's relationship with its bank," Hamby says.
According to ABCS, the public's overall disappointment in banks, particularly the large national chains, requires the entire industry to make changes. Community banks, many of which have been around for 100 years or more, urgently need new tools and solutions. Studies indicate, however, that implementing programs to retain deposits, build new relationships and develop new fee-base services are often met with poor expectations and low levels of confidence from many community bankers. "So on one hand," Hamby says, "the bigger banks have become undeserving competitors, and on the other hand, community banks lack the confidence they need in order to compete with them."
Better products, better solutions, more education, and increased confidence in their ability to energize old services and develop new ones can go far in helping community banks achieve positive outcomes, says ABCS.
"Our goal is to bring them the products, solutions and education, and to help them develop the confidence they need to better serve the business community."
About Advanced Business Checking Solutions
Advanced Business Checking Solutions (ABCS) is dedicated to helping banks create a more dynamic sales and operations environment by strategically integrating commercial checking and fee income growth strategies. Founded by industry veteran John Hamby in 2009, ABCS has developed and is expanding a line of software products and analytical tools and is providing hands-on analytical and sales assistance to enable banks to grow income, build customer value, and strengthen the role of community banking nationwide. The company's "Full Value Technology" platform expedites a bank's analysis of commercial checking accounts and the development of new concepts and presentations for current and prospective customers. ABCS is making a positive difference on behalf of, and in partnership with, community banks and the community businesses they serve. Advanced Business Checking Solution can be found on the web at www.advancedbusinesschecking.com.
About John Hamby
ABCS president and founder John Hamby has more than 40 years of banking experience on the national and community levels. He has crafted numerous creative solutions to the needs of banks and business, including his development of the most powerful check clearing system in the industry. He has shown his passion for vibrant community banking as Manager of Correspondent Banking (interbank relationships) at a large regional bank, as a member of the American Bankers Association Community Banking Executive Committee, president of a dynamic community bank for 18 years, and past president of the Connecticut Bankers Association. John holds a B.A. in Economics from Columbia College and an M.B.A. in Banking from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Hartford, University of Rhode Island and Quinnipiac University.
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Editorial Contacts:
Kirk Carr, Advanced Business Checking Solutions
860-828-2058
kcarr@advancedbusinesschecking.com
Joel Samberg, Public Relations
860-321-7490
joelthewriter@comcast.net