Bank of N.Y. Ads Tout Sweep Accounts

Bank of New York has a new flashy advertising campaign touting its sweep accounts just as such accounts are becoming more popular.

Sweep accounts enable businesses to shift funds nightly from checking accounts that pay no interest to interest-bearing money market funds. Balances have increased 25% annually in each of the last three years, according to New York accounting firm Ernst & Young's 1996 annual cash management survey.

The timing for the bank's "Business checking by day, mutual fund by night" campaign is just right, said Lawrence Forman, assistant director of the cash management consulting group at Ernst & Young. Small businesses, which the ads target, are unlikely to have an investment manager on staff as they downsize. And brokerage houses such as Merrill Lynch have stepped up efforts to snag small-business customers from banks, he said.

Geoffrey H. Bobroff, an East Greenwich, R.I.-based mutual fund consultant, said all banks should offer and advertise sweep accounts, because they are yet another way to strengthen customer relationships.

Judith Francis, vice president and director of advertising at Bank of New York, said the product has been popular since its inception in 1980 and is one segment of the bank's small-business product offerings.

Mr. Forman said sweep accounts tie in nicely with the forays banks are making in the mutual fund business, and help them do battle with nonbanks.

"Why let these funds escape easily without a fight?" Mr. Forman said.

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