BankThink

Citigroup probably has the most reputation problems of any still-standing bank in America, and boy do they know it. But the bank is intent on rehabilitating its image in a hurry; Citi´s North American Marketing Director Paul Kadin recently conducted 27 focus groups around the country examining how consumers feel about Citi, and big banks overall.

After TCF Financial CEO Bill Cooper's Sunday night speech excoriating regulators, Congressmen, MBAs, borrowers and, yes, some bankers, as catalysts for the collapse of banking and the global economy, attendees at American Banker's Best Practices in Retail Financial Services Symposium found it refreshing to hear U.S. Bancorp Vice Chairman Richard Hartnack take personal blame for the financial crisis on Monday morning. (Just after he said, "Neener, neener, I told you so!)

Deanna Oppenheimer, CEO of Barclays retail banking operations, with 1700 branches and 15 million customers, knows the reality that "banker bashing is the parlor game of the day." But she realized things had reached a height of media hysteria when a commercial banker who managed a corporate account about to be foreclosed found a tabloid photographer outside his kitchen window with a telephoto lens, getting a close-up of him giving his kids cereal for breakfast.

If you turn off CNBC for five minutes you remember that there´s actual banking going on, with leaders engaged in the day-to-day business of making loans and taking deposits. Deanna Oppenheimer, CEO of Barclays UK retail banking division, is happy to talk about the boring banker stuff behind her turnaround of the underperforming retail operation, a strategy that resulted in a division that now contributes more than 20 percent of Barclays' profits, where employees are more engaged than ever and customer satisfaction is at an all-time high.

Yes, Bill Cooper, Chairman and CEO of Minnesota-based TCF Financial famously wants to give back his bank´s $361 million in Tarp money. And though it took only six lines on a single page to get it, and already 280 pages filed with regulators to try to give it back, that´s not really what he wants to talk about. In the opening address at SourceMedia´s Best Practices in Retail Financial Services Symposium in Florida on Sunday, Cooper outlined the leading causes the financial crisis, and why he returned as chairman in 2008 after retiring in 2005.

The week ahead in Washington will be filled with anticipation. There are more hearings scheduled to take place on Capitol Hill and a couple of major agencies will convene meetings Tuesday, but the real question of the week is on bankruptcy. Will the stalled cramdown bill reach the Senate floor?

We´ve stayed out of the predominantly useless buzz over the recent battle between the financial news network CNBC and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, but now it´s time to weigh in. Our verdict: Regulators should watch and learn.

A few weeks back at a breakfast session that was sponsored by the Filene Research Institute, its executive director, Mark Meyer, pointed to all that was and is going on in the world and dusted off an old quote from CU pioneer Ed Filene: "Cooperation among individuals is no longer novel. Cooperation among cooperatives is imperative."

Editor's note: the following letter was written in response to "Regulators Seek Ways To Mitigate Corporate Burden" (CU Journal, Feb. 23)

Shame on NCUA.