Associated HQ Staying in GB
Although Associated Banc-Corp’s president and half its corporate staff are now officed in downtown Milwaukee – and the Green Bay-based bank held its annual meeting in Milwaukee for the second time in three years – the company has no plans to relocate its headquarters, said chairman and CEO Paul Beideman in the Business Journal of Milwaukee. (4/23/08)

U.S. Bank Aims to Reclaim Market
After losing more than one-third of its metropolitan Milwaukee business since a merger with Firstar Corp. seven years ago, U.S. Bank is extending branch hours, remodeling branches, boosting advertising and encouraging parents to open accounts for young children. Upon launching the initiative this fall, U.S. Bank will hire 100 full-time-equivalent employees, mainly tellers, and add small-business specialists to its branches, the Business Journal of Milwaukee reported. (4/18/08)

Madison Bank Earns Award
First Business Financial Services of Madison, parent company of First Business Bank, has received a Wisconsin Corporate Citizenship Award from Corporate Report Wisconsin and Edgewood College of Madison, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Companies are evaluated on environmental stewardship, community relations, diversity efforts and customer relations. (4/11/08)

EC Bank Buys Fox Valley Branches
Eau Claire-based Citizens Community Bancorp Inc. has agreed to purchase three branches located in Wal-Mart Supercenters from American National Bank of Beaver Dam, reported the Business Journal of Milwaukee. The branches are in Appleton, Fond du Lac and Oshkosh. (4/9/08)

In Defense of Community Banks
James McKenna, president and CEO of North Shore Bank, Brookfield, and a new board member for the American Bankers Association, points out that Wisconsin banks shouldn’t be put in the same category as Bear Stearns and other Wall Street banks in the media’s portrayal of the nation’s credit crisis. “The average consumer, when he reads the headlines, doesn’t differentiate. But it’s not us,” he says in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (4/9/08)

Milwaukee Bank to Change Name
Menomonee Falls-based MWBank, formerly Milwaukee Western Bank, plans to change its name for the second time in two years: this time to Securant Bank & Trust. The bank plans to expand its wealth management services and open new branches in southeastern Wisconsin. At least 23 banks in Wisconsin have changed their name over the past five years, often dropping reference to a specific city or region, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. (4/9/08)

Cap Times’ Latest on Banks
“We’re on a downward economic spiral once again brought about by the irresponsibility and greed of all too many of our financial institutions, and they still have the guts to tell Congress that they really don’t need much regulation,” writes Dave Zweifel in a Capital Times editorial. (4/9/08)

Mortgage Insurers Downgraded
Standard & Poor’s has lowered the credit rating of Milwaukee’s MGIC Investment Corp. and three of its competitors in the mortgage insurance business, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (4/8/08)

CIB Marine to Sell Fla. Assets
Pewaukee-based CIB Marine Bancshares Inc., the beleaguered parent company of Marine Bank, has reached a definitive agreement to sell all of the branches, substantially all of the deposits and the majority of the loan portfolio of its Florida banking subsidiary, Citrus Bank N.A., according to the Small Business Times of Milwaukee. (4/8/08)

Johnson Bank Branch to Open in June
Racine-based Johnson Bank will open a new 12,000-square-foot branch at 14000 W. North Ave. in Brookfield on June 2. The branch will be a LEED-certified green building, reported the Small Business Times of Milwaukee. (4/8/08)

Associated Names New Execs
Associated Banc-Corp recently hired Bernard Shaw as Senior Vice President, Manager of Correspondent Services. Based in Milwaukee, Shaw will oversee correspondent banking in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Associated also hired recently hired Donald Lloyd as senior vice president and international banking manager, according to the Small Business Times of Milwaukee. (4/8/08)

CUNA Worried About Reg Reform
If the revamping of the nation’s financial regulatory system proposed by the Treasury Department ever comes to be, credit unions as they exist today would be in jeopardy, the Credit Union National Association says in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (4/6/08)

Column: Regulate ‘Shadow Banking’
“The defense of laissez-faire economic policy highlights what is shaping up as a political brouhaha over the regulation of investments banks, which in recent years have been the foundation of the so-called shadow banking system,” writes Tom Saler in his column “Fed bailout was needed, but so is reform” in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (4/6/08)

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