Abstract: Recently, I wrote to a banker in Maine who was planning to withdraw his bank's membership from the ABA. I wrote that just as a banker hates to get a letter from a customer who decides to go with another bank, I don't like to see any member leave the ABA. When the ABA loses a customer--a member--we all lose. A strong, cohesive membership base gives the ABA something an army of Washington lobbyists could never provide, a viable grassroots lobbying capability. Members of Congress listen to our lobbyists, of course. But they really listen when they hear from the bankers back home, especially when we're united around a common cause. Presenting a united front paid dividends, for example, in reducing our industry's deposit-insurance premiums to zero for nine-out-of-ten banks this year. ABA played a critical role in challenging the FDIC's numbers and encouraging the agency to move to zero premiums at the earliest possible date. Even a premium of one cent, for example, would have meant $20,000 more, pre-tax, to my bank. On another issue of great importance to many banks, ABA has spent a lot of time and money on the credit union issue, I know firsthand of this effort since my bank has been a party, along with the ABA, to suing the National Credit Union Administration over what bankers believe to be an unlawful expansion of the common bond. A good trade association should know what is important to its members if it hopes to retain them. About a year ago, the ABA hired the Gallup Organization to assess how well we communicate with the members and, more important, how well we meet their needs. In telephone interviews with 478 randomly selected CEOs across the country, Gallup asked bankers to rate the importance of five broad ABA product and service categories. Multiple answers were allowed. Not surprisingly, the bankers ranked lobbying as most important, with a 74% rating. Next was news and information about banking at 66%. Then banker education and training, 50%; networking with peers, 34%; and products and services, 28%. The ABA Communications Council asked for this study, which they hoped would give ABA more information about what bankers think of the ABA, what services they use most and what, if anything, needs to be changed. One of the study's key findings was that satisfaction with the ABA increases with knowledge of ABA's products and services and agreement with ABA on its philosophies and positions. …
Publication Year: 1996
Publication Date: 1996-02-01
Language: en
Type: article
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