Christina O'Neill

Special To Banker & Tradesman

Christina O'Neill can be reached at editorial@thewarrengroup.com
Jay Anderson

Jay Anderson

Jay Anderson has been president and CEO of Pittsfield Cooperative Bank since 2009. Since 2004, he has also served as president of the board of the Pittsfield Economic Revitalization Corporation (PERC), with additional roles in its executive, loan and technical...
John Fulone

John Fulone

John Fulone’s outgoing voicemail message says a lot about him. In it, he lists several different contacts who can provide direct help for callers’ specific problems. The way he returns calls says a lot about him, too – he leaves no stone unturned, including appeals...
Andrew Sobers

Andrew Sobers

Building a community from the inside out, one household at a time, is Andrew Sobers’ vocation. That’s the observation of his nominator at Urban Edge, a nonprofit CDC serving Jamaica Plain, Roxbury and surrounding Boston communites. Sobers has served on Urban Edge’s...

Women’s Representation On Bank Boards Rising

Women currently make up more than 50 percent of the workforce and many have served in critical operational positions for years during their career ascendancy. With the looming retirement of more traditional white male board members, how many women who have earned...

Same-Day ACH Expected To Boost Cash Flow

Same-day ACH clearing and settlement is coming soon to a bank near you. NACHA, The Electronic Payments Association, intends to propose a ballot to adopt a refined same-day ACH rule in the second quarter of this year, with implementation occurring between 2016 and...
Free Market Should Apply To Banks Of All Sizes

Free Market Should Apply To Banks Of All Sizes

dd to capital reserves or slim your operation down. And this time, we mean it, courtesy of your own shareholders.
That’s the message of a bill introduced on Feb. 11 by U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.). HR 888, the Subsidy Reserve Act of 2015, would apply to nonbank financial companies supervised by the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, and bank holding companies with total consolidated assets of $500 billion or more to establish and maintain a subsidy reserve.

Postponing Death And Taxes

Last July, the U.S. Treasury issued regulations allowing Qualified Longevity Annuity Contracts as tax-deferred annuity products. The new rules allow deferment distribution of payments, within qualified retirement plans, until up to age 85, far beyond the required minimum distribution age of 70 ½.

Long Live The Lockbox

Digital online, remote deposit capture and mobile payment systems are growing rapidly, but they haven’t eclipsed the growth of the analog lockbox yet. For some banks – and their customers – the lockbox remains a payment system staple, and not just because of a fondness on the part of banks for retro technologies.

Can Peer-To-Peer Borrowing Go Mainstream?

The emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending as a vehicle for non-banked or underbanked people to get business loans and to develop or improve their credit history has become a financial feel-good story in an era of financial re-adjustment.

Keeping The Gold In The Golden Years

A change in leadership last July at Charlton-based Masonic Health System of Massachusetts, d.b.a. Overlook, signaled that even the most well-established senior housing development is vulnerable to market forces. Longtime President and CEO David C. Turner submitted his...

Wow! These AGs Are Getting Tough!

Subprime auto lending has been the dragon of the consumer-finance world for decades. Now, state attorneys general, including Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley, are taking up their swords to fight, supported in part by Dodd-Frank provisions that authorize states to...

Real-Time Analytics For Mission-Critical Needs

Real-time analytics used to be the province of the biggest and richest companies. But a combination of declining cost of random access memory (RAM) and the availability of open-source software to manage real-time computing needs is addressing the need for immediate...

How Are We Doing?

Bank customers, particularly those of the larger banks, are used to email and phone inquiries asking them about their experience with a recent branch or online transaction.

WHA, HUD Face Off

Worcester Housing Authority Executive Director Raymond V. Mariano was ready to launch a groundbreaking new public-housing program, after receiving an Aug. 14 approval letter from the Massachusetts office of the Office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). But on Sept. 22, HUD rescinded its approval, saying it had been in error, just as Mariano was ready to send thousands of notification letters to WHA public housing residents.

No Risk, No Reward

If it were possible to legislate good times for all, banks wouldn’t be caught between the requirements of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act and today’s broadened definition of “redlining,” a term with antecedents in early 20th century maps in which zones termed as high-risk lending environments were highlighted in red, as opposed the blue, yellow and green hues of more economically-sanguine districts.

Sharon Birchall

Sharon Birchall knows that the difference between financial soundness and financial instability can be determined by a few simple decisions and practices, consistently carried out. She also knows that for many on the financial edge, it’s not easy to talk about their situations to a financial-institution staffer – particularly when their financial standing is on the line as they apply for loans or other products and services.

CEO Age A Marker For Bank Sale

Keefe Bruyette & Woods Analyst Nishil Patel minced no words last month when he told global financial and business news provider SNL Financial that the potential selling bank list compiled by KBW is marked by institutions whose CEOS “tend to be pretty old.”