Cheers heard from the bleachers at Michigan Stadium last month may have come from bank customers, not just football fans.
That's because Bank of Ann Arbor tied a promotion to the Sept. 13 game between the hometown Wolverines of the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado Buffaloes.
The bank promised to pay an extra quarter of a percentage point on 12- month certificates of deposit if the Wolverines won. They did, so investors will earn 6.25% interest on their CDs.
The bank sold $3 million in new CDs, more than enough to justify the interest cost, said William M. Broucek, president of the $67 million-asset bank.
The war of words between banks and credit unions continues.
The Community Bankers Association of New York State is distributing a 10-page booklet titled "Credit Unions: Fact vs. Fiction" to state legislators, members of Congress, banking executives, and consumer groups.
"The point of the pamphlet," said Mariel Donath, president and chief executive officer of the association, "is to help people to understand the difference between traditional credit unions and the multidimensional institutions taking advantage of their tax-free status."
But not everyone is looking at the new booklet as an unbiased source.
"What they have written is absolute fiction," said Amy Colodny of the New York State Credit Union League.
For the past three seasons, First State Bank of Brownsville, Tenn., has tied a CD rate to its local Haywood High School football games.
The rate paid increases Mondays during the fall based on the margin of the football team's victory that weekend. If the team wins by seven points, the rate goes up 0.07 of a percentage point.
The rate, which started at 5.5%, does not go down if Haywood loses.
"This is a big football town," said Aubrey Earnhart, First State's president and chief executive officer. With this CD, "people can sit in the stands and cheer and say, 'My CD has just gone up.'" u
