Spare changes: Let Them Count the Ways-Fla.'s Republic At $1B of

Luckily, tellers at Republic Bancshares aren't being asked to count out the company's assets by hand.

Because if they did, it would take a bank teller-counting at a rate of one bill per second and working nonstop-31.7 years to count out one billion $1 bills.

The Florida banking company figured out this little-known fact as part of its announcement that it had reached the $1 billion-asset mark. It's a notable milestone for Republic, which had only $169 million of assets just over four years ago.

"We are keenly aware that bigger is not necessarily better," said John W. Sapanski, chairman of the board and chief executive officer. "But reaching $1 billion of assets so quickly is evidence that our customers believe that we are doing the right things and doing them the right way."

And to drive the point home on how big $1 billion is, the bank offered a few other fun facts:

A person would have to spend more than $2.7 million every day for a year to spend $1 billion.

One billion $1 bills laid end-to-end would wrap around Earth at the equator almost four times.

A person with $1 billion could spend $27,300 per day every day for 100 years and still have more than $3.5 million left.

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NASHVILLE-Money doesn't have to be the only thing customers pass down through the generations.

A Tennessee financial marketing firm has created a new product that helps checking account customers record favorite family stories.

FISI-Madison Financial, which counts about 6,000 banks, thrifts, and credit unions as customers, is offering a Family Story Teller kit to go with checking accounts.

The kit includes a writer's companion book and an audio tape that promises to have the amateur author writing "in just eight minutes."

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