ABA Banking Journal - August 2007 - (Page 46)

COMPLIANCE CLINIC aims at serving the needs of the AfricanAmerican customer, and promotes itself with the marketing tagline, “Uniquely Yours!” using variations on the theme of “Bank Where Your Child Could One Day Be President” (p. 45). These ads and posters feature children of employees and other area children who the bank’s target marBanking the unbanked ket recognize by sight from church funcThe bank has strong concentrations in tions and other community activities. residential real estate lending and in small An excerpt from one such ad: business lending. However, given the “If you think banks are all alike, think portions of the minority populaagain. Commonwealth National tion not yet doing business with Bank is no ordinary bank. Their banking, a major part of its chalemployees are your friends and lenge is building up participation neighbors, their children attend in the banking system. In this, the same schools as yours, their the bank has enjoyed some sucfamilies worship where you worcess, and faced up to some good ship, and everyone gives someideas that didn’t work out as thing back. Commonwealth’s staff planned, and to competition that understands the unique needs of brought larger guns to bear on the community you call home, the bank’s own market specialty. after all—it’s their home too.” King says the bank has learned Another ad (see left) that the what works and what doesn’t. bank has used shows King and a One experiment was the bank’s selection of the bank’s employso-called “Rainy Day Account.” ees, all black, with the stress on The savings account was created the staff’s many off-hours spent as a way for the bank to help on community service. teach new customers who were The ad carries two messages. also new to banking how to manOne is subliminal. According age their funds, and how to build to King’s history of the bank, at a savings habit. the time that W.O. Powell and felKing says that the bank initiallow founders set out to launch ly favored the savings vehicle Commonwealth, “the highest over a checking account because bank position held by a black man experience indicated that checkin Mobile was that of janitor.” ing accounts tended to be conThe other is more direct, makfusing for banking newcomers. ing the point, after reciting all the Some didn’t make the connection hours that the staff gives to more between the balance kept in the The staff of Commonwealth National Bank works at serving the than 50 local organizations: “So account and the checks in their institution’s community both on-duty and off-duty. In this ad the what’s your bank doing to checkbook, for example, simply bank emphasizes its local connection. improve your community? writing checks so long as there Commonwealth’s record is clear, were blank checks remaining. along to customers, King says. we’re giving back!” The intent of the “rainy day” vehicle Meanwhile, overdraft fees are bringing Church competition was to create a less-liquid place for cus- some income to the bank along the way. The latter point arises from increased tomers to accumulate funds. Unfortuncompetition that Commonwealth faces ately, within six months the pilot group Reaching out to blacks of customers had all closed their King says one reason many minorities for the business of the churches that accounts, for one reason or another, and don’t have a banking relationship is the helped it get started. Mainstream banks the bank, finding no way to generate sig- feeling that the banking system isn’t for caught on to the value of the church marnificant earnings from the account, them. Commonwealth, in a city where ket, and began offering services catering blacks account for nearly half the popula- to the church officials’ needs. shelved the idea. “Unfortunately, these leaders do not More recently, growing competition tion, and many are in lower-income forced the bank to move to offering free households, has strived for a tone of understand that by transferring the checking accounts, something that King inclusiveness in its marketing, to under- wealth of their congregation to the large had been resisting, in spite of their wide- score that it is an institution that not only out-of-town banks, they are disinvesting wants, but welcomes, and identifies with, in their own local community,” King spread popularity. points out in his bank history. Thinking of its target market base, the minority customers. One longtime approach consists of ads The bank continues to work to win bank headlined offers for the account with, “Free at last! Free at last!” King noted that the reference to the famous speech by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., struck a chord with the bank’s market, resulting in a successful account launch. The three-branch bank subsidizes access to over 1,000 ATMs for free-checking customers, through a deal struck with a larger area bank. The costs are not passed 46 AUGUST 2007/ABA BANKING JOURNAL

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ABA Banking Journal - August 2007

Contents Editor's Column The Unbankers Snapshot: Do Share Repurchases Signal More M&A Activity Sleight of Mind Goals Behind Proposed ABA/ACB Merger ABA Resources ABA Chairman's Position Should You Sell Those Nonperformers Pass the Aspirin Branch Design - Evoking a Sense of Place Two Banks Take the LEED Move Over, Buddy Service Feature: Bankers' Banks Directory Websites: What's State of the Art for Banks? Citi Mobile to Go Strong with iPhone? Date First, Marry Later Mailbox Banker's Mart To Advertise/Index of Advertisers The Economy

ABA Banking Journal - August 2007

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