“MOVES-NAB, HSBC, Northrim Bank, Credit Suisse - Reuters” plus 4 more

MOVES-NAB, HSBC, Northrim Bank, Credit Suisse - Reuters
Mound City Bank Renews Contract with Banker’s Academy for ... - PR Inside
DBS, ANZ, Julius Baer Said to Bid for ING Private Bank Assets - Bloomberg
TheStar.com | Business | Bank of Montreal profit climbs 7% - Toronto Star
Bank profits on mortgages reach record level - Daily Telegraph

MOVES-NAB, HSBC, Northrim Bank, Credit Suisse - Reuters

Posted: 26 Aug 2009 03:43 AM PDT

Aug 26 (Reuters) - The following financial services industry appointments were announced on Wednesday. To inform us of other job changes, e-mail moves@thomsonreuters.com.

NATIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK (NAB.AX)

Steve Lambert is taking on a new role as global head of debt markets at National Australia Bank (NAB), the bank said. Lambert was previously NAB's head of distribution. To read more, please double click on [ID:nSYD533732]

HSBC BANK HSBC.L

HSBC Bank said it appointed Geoffrey Pidgeon as head of wholesale wealth management within its global investments business in Australia.

Pidgeon will be responsible for the distribution of managed funds and structured products into the advisor market in Australia. Pidgeon came from Macquarie Funds Group where he was head of retail sales. [ID:nSYD533732]

NORTHRIM BANK (NRIM.O)

Northrim Bank said it promoted Joe Beedle to president from executive vice-president and chief lending officer.

The bank also said Marc Langland will remain chairman, president and chief executive of parent company Northrim BanCorp Inc, and chairman and CEO of Northrim Bank.

CREDIT SUISSE (CSGN.VX)

Credit Suisse named Chunlei Wu, Vishal Sodha, Theresa Wong, Hong Nam Yeoh, Regina Tan and Hunter Jamieson to its Asia Pacific fixed income sales team.

Previously, Wu worked with the Deutsche Bank and Sodha with Citigroup, Wong and Tan join from UBS, Yeoh from J.P. Morgan and Jamieson from Barclays Capital.

The bank also appointed Richard Cohen, Bevan Harris and John Camara to the Asia Pacific fixed income trading team. (Compiled by Abhishek Takle in Bangalore)

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Mound City Bank Renews Contract with Banker’s Academy for ... - PR Inside

Posted: 26 Aug 2009 12:44 AM PDT

2009-08-26 09:45:10 - Mound City Bank has renewed its contract with Edcomm Banker's Academy for an additional year of comprehensive bank training.

New York, NY, August 26, 2009 -- Banker's Academy Unlimited will continue to be hosted and maintained by Edcomm Banker's Academy's Learning own Management System (LMS), Learning Link®.

Banker's Academy Unlimited, from Edcomm Banker's Academy, provides every employee at a Bank, Credit Union or Money Services Business (MSB) with everything s/he needs to be successful. Banker's Academy Unlimited covers more than

800 topics, including compliance, platform skills, branch security, sales and service, teller training, fraud, information security, lending and more. These programs may be deployed as eLearning, as classroom training or as a blended program. Each program includes a searchable library for reference and uses easy-to-understand language designed specifically for Banks, Credit Unions and Money Services Businesses (MSBs).

Testing, tracking, administration, reports and certification are easily accomplished through Learning Link®, Edcomm Banker's Academy's full-featured LMS, which has an open architecture that builds on industry-standard SCORM and AICC compliance, but adds features and capabilities far beyond any competing products. Learning Link® maintains a complete record of every learning and administrative activity and offers a wide variety of customizable, real-time reports available both onscreen and in CSV formats for download and integration into any HR system. Learning Link's servers have been issued a SAS-70 attesting to the quality of their security, business continuity and performance.

For more information about programs like this, or to find out how The Edcomm Group Banker's Academy can customize any training program, log onto www.bankersacademy.com or call +1.212.631.9400.

Established in 1915, Mound City Bank is now the premiere provider of financial services in Southwest Wisconsin with five full service locations and assets exceeding $269 million.

The Edcomm Group Banker's Academy is a 22-year-old multimedia education and communication consulting firm specializing in the development of creative business solutions that improve productivity, customer service and market share - providing bottom-line results. The Edcomm Group Banker's Academy has had the privilege of assisting many distinguished clients with business solutions in the form of eLearning programs, classroom instruction, multimedia production and online and print based documentation. Edcomm Banker's Academy offers many off-the-shelf and customized courses such as Teller Training, Compliance Training and Systems Training specifically designed for Banks, Credit Unions and Money Services Businesses (MSBs).

The Edcomm Group Banker's Academy (www.bankersacademy.com) is headquartered in New York City with locations and representation throughout the world.

Contact:
Dr. Linda Eagle
Edcomm Banker's Academy
21 Penn Plaza Suite 1010
New York, NY 10001, USA
T: 212.631.9400
F: 212.631.0659
linda.eagle@edcomm.com
www.bankersacademy.com

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DBS, ANZ, Julius Baer Said to Bid for ING Private Bank Assets - Bloomberg

Posted: 26 Aug 2009 03:43 AM PDT

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Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. and Julius Baer Holding AG are among potential buyers of ING Groep NV 's private banking operations, three people familiar with the matter said. Amsterdam ...

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TheStar.com | Business | Bank of Montreal profit climbs 7% - Toronto Star

Posted: 26 Aug 2009 01:27 AM PDT

Love-hate relationship

Reasons we love bank profits:

Canadians benefit from owning bank stocks, directly or through mutual funds and pension plans.

Higher profits are a sign the economy is on the mend.

Our banks remained strong during the global financial crisis.

Reasons not to like them:

We hate how much we often pay in fees and interest charges for banking services and loans.

Stubbornly high credit-card interest rates.

Moves by some banks to hike rates on lines of credit as the Bank of Canada was slashing its key overnight rate.

RITA TRICHUR
BUSINESS REPORTER

Bank of Montreal predicted yesterday that higher consumer spending and a rebounding housing market will fuel more growth in personal credit and residential mortgages during the second half of this year.

The bank made the upbeat forecast as it reported a third-quarter profit of $557 million, up 6.9 per cent.

That decidedly positive tone from Canada's fourth-largest bank – the first of the big six lenders to report earnings this season – heartened investors who bid up BMO's stock by 6.7 per cent, or $3.29, to $52.30 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"Looking at the broader economies, there is a normalization under way," said president and chief executive officer Bill Downe. "We're identifying growth opportunities and we're well positioned going into 2010."

Canada's economic recovery already appears to be improving BMO's fortunes. Deposit growth is up and Canadian consumer delinquencies stabilized during the May-to-July quarter.

The bank also set aside less money to cover bad loans. Provisions for credit losses totalled $417 million for the three months ended July 31, 2009. That's down $67 million from $484 million in the same period last year.

While analysts lauded that "credit surprise," BMO executives said provisions for credit losses are likely to remain relatively high into 2010. That's partly because it expects the jobless rate to eventually top 9 per cent and the high-flying Canadian dollar to contribute to a "sluggish" economic recovery.

The bank also predicted the loonie will return to parity with the U.S. dollar next year.

"However, we're confident that the strength of our core business earnings will absorb our credit losses through this cycle," Downe said.

Furthermore, the bank has taken steps to ensure that credit continues to flow, such as deliberately maintaining high capital levels.

A key measure of financial strength — known as the Tier 1 Capital ratio — was 11.71 per cent at quarter's end. That is well above the regulatory minimum of 7 per cent. That ratio is expected to fall in 2010 as demand for lending increases, led by growth in consumer loans.

"BMO's credit risk is moderating in our view," John Aiken of Dundee Capital Markets wrote in a note to clients. "Further, with very strong capital levels, we believe that BMO's risk profile has dramatically improved in 2009."

BMO said its third-quarter profit amounted to 97 cents per diluted share. That compared with year-ago net income of $521 million, or 98 cents per share. Revenue increased by more than 8 per cent to $2.98 billion.

The bank largely credited higher earnings in its bread-and-butter personal and commercial division and from its once-battered capital markets segment for buttressing its improved results.

Its cornerstone Canadian retail division recorded an earnings increase of 13 per cent, while BMO Capital Markets' net income improved 30 per cent from the same period last year.

BMO also held its quarterly dividend steady at 70 cents per common share despite being dogged by renewed speculation in recent days about the potential for a cut. Monday, the Strategic Short Report, an Internet newsletter, suggested that an unnamed bank would cut its dividend. Other sites later identified the lender as BMO.

In his note, Aiken said the speculation was "chalked up to crazy Internet rumours," adding BMO's third-quarter performance "should put most of the concerns regarding a potential dividend cut to rest."

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Bank profits on mortgages reach record level - Daily Telegraph

Posted: 26 Aug 2009 01:12 AM PDT

By Myra Butterworth, Personal Finance Correspondent
Published: 6:45AM BST 26 Aug 2009

It is the latest evidence of how customers are paying the price of banks' mistakes which led to the global banking crisis.

The figures show lenders are continuing to raise their mortgage rates despite their own costs falling and the Bank of England keeping interest rates at an all-time low of just 0.5 per cent.

As the British Bankers' Association disclosed the worst figures for net mortgage lending in nine years, it has led to banks facing growing calls to lower their margins and offer lower borrowing costs to individuals.

Grant Shapps, shadow housing minister, said: "The Government's failure to end the cycle of housing boom and bust means that at exactly the same time as hard-pressed families have been struggling to get a mortgage, news of record profits from lenders has surfaced.

"Sadly, all building blocks of the next housing boom are being created because the government's failure to put into place a Bank of England-led system of financial regulation."

The statistics from Moneyfacts show that the average two-year fixed rate mortgage climbed to 5.18 per cent while swap rates – which lenders use to help price their fixed rate mortgages – stood at 2.04 per cent on Tuesday.

It brings the margin between the cost of bank lending and average fixed rates to 3.14 per cent, the widest since Moneyfacts' records began in 1988. Moneyfacts, the personal finance website, started in business in 1988 but the explosion in the mortgage market has only really occurred in the past decade.

Michelle Slade, of Moneyfacts, said: "Borrowers looking for a new mortgage deal are continuing to pay a heavy price for previous mistakes made by lenders.

"Margins continue to be increased as lenders look to repair dented balance sheets.

"Normal rules where lenders pass or decrease rates based on the cost of funding seem to have well and truly gone out of the window."

Experts warned that if action is not taken, mortgage rates would reach 10 per cent within a year once Bank of England interest rates begin to rise.

Jonathan Cornell, of mortgage brokers First Action Finance, said: "It is incredibly scary – if banks continue to charge the margins which they currently are, then rates could go into double figures once the Bank rate goes up."

It comes as separate figures showed a marginal rise in mortgage lending, up to 38,000 in July from 35,500 the previous month, according to the British Bankers' Association.

But it said net mortgage lending was still only £1.6 billion last month – the worst figure since October 2000.

Borrowers also being hit by the rising cost of arranging a home loan, the average cost of which has jumped from 8.71 per cent five years ago to 12.27 per cent.

Taking into account the drop in the Bank Rate from 4.75 per cent to 0.5 per cent during this time, it means lenders have seen their profit margins on loans rise by almost 8 per cent, according to personal finance website Moneynet.co.uk.

The City's regulator, the Financial Services Authority, has put banks and building societies under pressure to improve their balance sheets by increasing their cash reserves. But critics said banks were over-reacting and customers had no other choice but to pick up the cost.

Lenders defended the mortgage rate increases saying rates took into account the risk involved of lending high loan-to-values amid falling house prices.

A Treasury spokesman said: "As the Chancellor said at the end of July, he is concerned to make sure that banks are making competitively priced lending available.

"That is why the Treasury is discussing with each individual bank what the problems preventing lending are, why prices are being charged at a particular level, and what the availability of loans is, to make sure that small businesses and individuals are getting a fair deal."