21st-Century Banking, I: A U.S. banking behemoth dusts itself off from the fine mess it got itself into and forges on into the, er, 21st-ish century

This would be the famous bankers, um, Mr. Morgan
at left and Mr. Chase at right?

by Ken

For decades now my friend Terry has had all sorts of accounts in a bank that has evolved into, at last check, J. P. Morgan Chase Laurel and Hardy -- if I recall correctly, Morgan is the hapless skinny one and Chase the chubby one who's always saying, "Here's another fine mess you've gotten us into."

Now, by "all sorts of accounts" I mean business as well as personal ones. Other family members of hers have had accounts there too. So you'd figure, boy, when they see her coming, they roll out the red carpet. That, after all, is the personal banking relationship that's at the heart of our banking system.

Oh wait, I think I'm thinking of some other banking system. LIke the one former New York Knicks forward and U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley has talked and written about, remembering growing up in Crystal City, Missouri, where his father ran a bank and considered it a basic part of his job to know all his customers, and thereby be in a position to evaluate their creditworthiness when it came to making decisions about loans. It wasn't just his reputation on the line when he approved a loan, it was the bank's money -- and at the same time it was important to approve the loans that represented good risks, since that after all is how the bank made money.

In point of fact, for years now all Terry has gotten when she walks into her branch of whatever the damned bank happens to be called at that moment is indifference, ignorance, rotten advice, and fiscal mayhem. She seems to spend most of her banking time trying to figure out how exactly the bank folk have screwed things up now, in order to try to explain it to them.

She realizes, of course, that the people she deals with at the bank know next to nothing about their business, the idea of "training" apparently having been abandoned as cost-ineffective around the time men walked on the moon. What's more, their fancy high-tech phones don't seem to connect them to anyone who knows any more about the business.

You'll be glad to learn, however, that JPMCLH has gotten the message of the economic meltdown, and is poised to come roaring back from the punishment it has recently absorbed. I think even that mean Barney Frank will be impressed, and will agree that somebody's earned a whopping bonus when he hears about JPMCLH's latest banking innovation.

Last week, Terry reports, she went into JPMCLH with her usual modest hope of fighting her way through to some minor but necessary banking accomplishment and found all the boys and girls there filled with a new spirit. Not to do banking business, exactly, or at any rate not as such. No, they were all eager to establish their new relationship with the people who came in the bank, who might once have been called "customers" or "clients" (or "patsies"?). One and all, they stressed to her that she was a guest of the bank.

The folks at JPMCLH may not have seen the housing bubble, or seen the meltdown that might ensue when it burst, but you can't say they don't have a firm grasp now on the basics of their business. Yessiree, now that they have all those guests coming in their buildings, presumably they can look forward to all of them bringing bottles of wine, or boxes with cake, or maybe candy and flowers.

Another fine mess, or just the same old one?

#