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One way credit card companies can afford to offer these lavish perks, incidentally, is that these premium cards have a significant higher interchange rate, says Jim Bramlett, a managing director at Novantas, a consulting firm for the banking and credit card industry.

The answer won’t be found in traditional strategies for branch network efficiency enhancement, according to Novantas consultants writing in the Bank Administration Institute’s Banking Strategies.

Tampa Bay Business JournalThe chase is on for the banking business of 2,000 middle-market companies in Florida, including 500 to 750 firms in the Tampa Bay area. On the heels of its conversion of former Washington Mutual branches and systems, Chase, the U.S. consumer and commercial banking brand of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM),… Read more »

American BankerAsset sales and writedowns are a top priority for many banks right now but these are only first steps. In the long run, part of eliminating concentrations in one loan category, such as real estate development, or in a particular geographical area, must include lending elsewhere. The problem is, there are only so many… Read more »

The Wall Street JournalWhen Edward Miller recently applied for a Charles Schwab Corp. credit card, a company representative asked him to fax in copies of his bank-account statements to verify his net worth. It was

Responses from 6,250 middle-market businesses about their banks, which includes top tier, regional and larger community banks, are part of a joint study due out this week from Novantas LLC and the Connecticut research firm Greenwich Associates LLC.rn

The area likely to undergo the greatest pressure for cost management is the branch system, said Sherief Meleis, also a managing director at Novantas.

But not everyone believes branch networks will continue to expand. Dave Kaytes, a managing director in the New York consulting firm Novantas, says there could be as many as 10,000 fewer branches in the country in the next five years as the industry makes slashing costs its top priority.

Steve Turner, a managing director at Novantas in New York, said that some may have initially thought the top banks receiving Tarp money were overly stressed and needed to offer higher rates to attract more customers, but media reports throughout the winter and spring proved…

US BankerWhile its house was burning down, BankUnited of Coral Gables, Fla., was on a deposit-gathering spree. Florida’s largest lender had been under the gun to reverse its negative Tier 1 capital ratio since being slapped with cease-and-desist order in September by the Office of Thrift Supervision. The institution was raking in the deposits with… Read more »