Real Bankers Still Exist!

A sidebar in my American Banker email highlights the publication's 2008 Best in Banking, The report features BofA's Ken Lewis, named Banker of the Year last December. Must have seemed a good idea at the time. Since then Mr. Lewis and others have learned hard lessons.

Things are going better, we hope, for those selected community bankers of the year. I especially admired UMB CEO Mariner Kemper, the sixth member of the family to run that bank since a Kemper founded it almost a century ago. Mr. Kemper's banking strategy must have seemed strange to megabanks, but it appears to be working for UMB: "…lend to borrowers we have met … understand the loans we are making, and [don't] make them through intermediaries."

Marketing sidelight: Lately it's been fashionable to imagine banks as composed of sub-brands: AnyBank Credit Cards, AnyBank Mortgage, AnyBank Brokerage, Anybank Trust, etc. It becomes easy to imagine that a slip-up at one sub-brand matters not to the others. Wrong! In the public's mind, what happens in any part of the bank shapes the reputation of the whole.

That's true when there are slip-ups, and it's true when a bank gets good PR. If you were looking for a Midwest trust department, wouldn't you figure that UMB's is likely to invest prudently, just because its CEO is so prudent about lending?

P.S. Mr. Kemper is one example of a banker who probably deserves more than $500,000 a year!