Headlines:
Deluxe Reports 9% Decline in Earnings
Deluxe Corp. said growth in its small-business segment in the second quarter failed to offset higher interest expenses and the continuing effect of the loss of losing a large check-printing customer.
Net income for the nation's No. 1 check printer fell 9% in the three months, to $42 million, or 83 cents a share. Revenue was $434 million, besting the year-earlier period by 40%.
The revenue figure included $154 million from New England Business Service Inc. of Groton, Mass., which Deluxe bought in June 2004 and made the center of its small-business unit.
Deluxe, of Shoreview, Minn., said that margins for New England Business Service, a printer and catalogue company serving small companies, are lower than in check printing. Lawrence J. Mosner, Deluxe's chairman and chief executive, said in a July 28 press release that the acquired outfit "is helping drive profitability" in small-business services.
Revenue in Deluxe's check-printing businesses fell 13% in the quarter. In November, Wells Fargo & Co. moved its check printing to John H. Harland Co. of Atlanta.
Deluxe affirmed its previous estimate for full-year earnings of $3.30 a share. It projected third-quarter earnings of 72 to 76 cents a share.
Something's Missing at JPM Site (Still)
Customers of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. will have to wait nearly a month to be able to transfer money at its banking Web site.
When e-banking customers log in, they are presented with a message reading, "During the next few weeks, you will not be able to transfer money from a Chase deposit account to any Chase credit card, mortgage, home equity, or auto accounts."
The message suggests customers use the company's online bill-pay service to pay those bills. It does not say when the transfer service will be restored, but Tom Kelly, a spokesman, said Thursday that it will be up again Aug. 27.
JPMorgan Chase shut down its entire online banking site on Sunday, July 24, so it could add such services as paperless statements and voice alerts, which have long been available at bankone.com. The site came back up the next day, but without the transfer service.
JPMorgan Chase acquired Bank One Corp. last year and plans to shift former customers of the Chicago company to the chase.com site this fall.
Mr. Kelly said shutting down the transfer service was planned, and he noted that it is common for banks to turn off some automated services during a systems integration.
In earlier mergers, "the online usage numbers were not what they are today," Mr. Kelly said. "It's a situation of being very popular and therefore being very visible."
Alenka Grealish, who manages the banking group at the Boston market research firm Celent Communications LLC, said "it's not surprising or alarming that it can take that long."
Saving money could be one goal in the gradual restoration of the service, Ms. Grealish said.
JPMorgan Chase is "definitely deferring to the shareholder over the customer," she said. "I'm a bit struck that they didn't figure out how to make it through this period with" some kind of "shadow" backup system.
Dan Schatt, a senior analyst for Celent, said the inconvenienced customers may be upset but are the least apt to defect, since they have more than one of JPMorgan Chase's products.
"This could actually spur some people that may not use bill payment a lot … to actually utilize the bill payment module a little more," he said.
