30 Cover Story: Can Banks Compete with Wal-Mart?
The retailing behemoth says it is not planning to get into consumer lending or deposit gathering, but many bankers aren't buying it. The biggest private company in the U.S., Wal-Mart already offers wire transfer, payroll-check cashing and check printing. Can Wal-Bank be far behind? Other nonbanks, from Toyota to H&R Block, are also crowding the space.
39 Annual Performance Ranking: Top 100 Public Banks
Large-cap banks were able to ride the fumes of the mortgage boom last year to post good numbers. Median return-on-equity topped 15 percent. But this year, things will be tougher.
44 Risk Management: Political Risk Abroad
Political unrest and terrorist threats give executives nightmares, but the risks most likely to challenge financial firms abroad will be more mundane: keeping local palms greased and the lights on.
6 Editorial Index
8 Commentary
Managing change. Generating growth. Creating best practices. All will figure into the magazine's third annual ranking of the industry's most influential women.
10 Front and Center
With extra compliance costs courtesy of Sarbanes-Oxley, banks are increasingly going private p10
Scene and Heard p10
Money Matters p10
Recent reform makes Libya the latest frontier for banks, but chaos abounds p12
Hits and Has Beens p12
Fresh Ink p12
Pipeline p15
16 Word Is
The Morgan Stanley mess gets messier-and speculation grows about Purcell's ouster. Will corporate America need ethics manuals to dictate all aspects of employee behavior?
Plus Noted and Noteworthy
18 Inside Track Policy, Players and Politics
A Senate report indicates money laundering in the Pinochet case was endemic to the industry. But a new rule is designed to curb similar conflict-of-interest cases.
20 Fast Forward
JPMorgan Chase undergoes one of largest virtual tests to date of burgeoning pre-deployment modeling assessments.
24 Marketing
Forget toasters, think Blackberries and iPods, as bank promos go modern p24 Ad Beat: Provident Bank's brand campaign is aimed at real people p26 Perspective: What gets watched gets done, and customer verification is getting watched, says Beach Business Bank's Robert Franko p28
48 Main Street
A new wave of customer-data theft means more banks are scrutinizing vendors. That's a challenge for community banks.
50 Consumer Finance
Consumers pay $33 billion in overdraft-protection fees annually. Regulators have stepped in to quell alleged abuses.
52 Corporate & Institutional
Banks are eager to put their money to work, but they may be planting seeds for the next crop of bad loans.
54 Wealth Management
A theater company designs plays to spur dialogue on the sensitive family issues so important in wealth management.
61 Economy
Saving the dollar from the impact of increasing national debt to fund private social security accounts may require a collapse in the housing market.
63 Op Ed
Outsourcing options are expanding for mid-tier banks. Panama, Canada and even some U.S. locales are luring those jobs, says James Gionfriddo of TSYS.
64 Parting Shot
This year's CIO Summit, held in March at the Union League Club in New York City, brought technology players together to dissect the thorny issues before banks.
