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Commerce Bank

Satisfactory Essays

9-603-080 REV: OCTOBER 3, 2006 FRANCES X. FREI Commerce Bank The hardest thing about becoming a big bank is not becoming a big bank. — Douglas Pauls, chief financial officer Introduction Deborah Jacovelli looked up from her desk as a big pumpkin, a Dalmatian, and a masked crusader ran by her office. It was business as usual at Commerce University, Commerce Bank’s Cherry Hill, New Jersey training center, but it was also Halloween on a rainy day in 2002 and the employees were getting into it with their usual enthusiasm. As dean of Commerce University, Jacovelli had witnessed the development of many innovative methods for energizing the company’s employees. Halloween costumes and people decorating their cubicles, hardly typical …show more content…

For example, in the case of certificates of deposit, a customer agreed to store money with the bank for a set amount of time at a higher interest rate than a typical, “demand” deposit account. Banks typically had a dozen or more types of checking accounts distinguished by a variety of characteristics including minimum balance required to avoid fees, channel access, checks that could be written free of charge, and overdraft protection.1 In 2001, the banking industry loaned almost 90% of its deposit base. In addition, growth in both deposits and loans was about 20% over the period of 1998 to 2001. (See Exhibit 4a for the consolidated balance sheet for the banking industry.) Large institutions that experienced larger than average growth typically accomplished this through mergers and acquisitions. Two important trends in the industry had evolved. The first was a push to increase the “crosssell” of products—the number of products each customer used. Although the industry did not formally track this number, on average, customers tended to hold 1.5-2.5 products at an institution. Most companies had cross-sell goals that were significantly higher than this level. The second trend was towards growing revenues from fees customers paid for certain transactions and functionality. From 1998 to 2001, fee revenue, also known as non-interest income, had increased at 27%, a much higher

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