Earlier this August, 154 financial institutions participated in The Financial Brand’s 2010 Online Marketing Study, including 49 retail banks and 93 credit unions. 64 of the participants had $1 billion in assets or more. 66 had less than $500 million in assets. 46% described themselves as “novices” at online marketing, 43% said they were “intermediate” online marketers, and only 8% felt confident enough in their abilities to characterize their organizations as “advanced.” Nearly 4% admitted they don’t do any online marketing at all.

Nearly a quarter of all retail financial institutions said they allocate around 5% of their marketing budgets to online activities. 32% weren’t sure if their organization invests any money in online marketing. 6% knew the total: $0.

22% don’t track or measure their online activities, while only 8% do so all the time.

45% of banks and credit unions don’t have any online marketing staff. Nearly a third have only one full-time employee dedicated to online marketing activities.

46.40% have a Facebook page, 34.60% use Twitter, 24.80% are on YouTube and only 1.3% have a MySpace page. 5% are toying around with Foursquare. 18% of retail financial institutions have a blog.

While most financial institutions embrace email marketing, a surprising 31% don’t.

57% of banks invest in search engine optimization (SEO), while only 36% of credit unions do the same — a difference of 21%. By an even greater margin, banks are much more likely to utilize search engine marketing (SEM): 57% vs. 23%.

Banks are 20% more likely to have microsites, and are 36% more likely to run banner ads than their credit union peers.

Credit unions are less likely to have a mobile phone app. They are, however, more likely to have a blog, an online newsletter and ads in their eStatements.

You can download a raw Excel file with data from the 2010 Online Marketing Study. The file includes three worksheets with comparisons between banks and credit unions and breakdowns by assets. You can perform more granular comparisons with another separate file that includes the individual entries from each study participant.

Please note: If you use any of the data from this study, you must attribute credit to The Financial Brand.

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For a fourth consecutive year, customer loyalty and perceptions of brand image among retail banking customers continue to decline, primarily due to low marks in customer service, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study.

“As retail banking customers become
considerably less loyal, banks need to
focus on getting the fundamentals right.”
— Michael Beird,
J.D. Power

Results of the study show that poor customer service is the most common reason why customers switched banks so far this year. Poor customer service is cited by 37% of customers who have changed their primary bank in 2010.

Fees continue to have a major impact on customer loyalty, as 29% of customers who switched banks in 2010 cite high fees for products or services as their reason for switching.

The percentage of customers who say they “definitely will not” switch banks during the next 12 months has decreased significantly during the past three years to 34% in 2010, compared with 46% three years ago in the 2007 study.

The gap in loyalty intent between customers of larger and smaller banks is considerable, with 41% of customers at smaller banks who say they “definitely will not” switch, compared with 32% at larger banks.

The study also found that 51% of customers in 2010 indicated a preference for online banking, an increase from 45% in 2008. In addition, 7% of customers report using a mobile device to execute such transactions as checking balances, transferring funds and paying bills.

J.D. Power and Associates handed out awards to the banks in 11 different regions that achieved the highest scores in its study. Arvest Bank had the highest overall satisfaction score of any bank in the country, and the only one to top the list in two separate regions (South Central and Southwest).

The Chase/WaMu merger clearly had an impact on how customers felt about the bank. It was ranked last in three regions — California, New England and the Northwest — all areas where the once-popular WaMu had a strong branch presence.

One thing to note about the winners (and losers) below: Regional players seem to have an edge.

California

• Winner: Bank of the West
• Last Place: Chase/WaMu

Florida

• Winner: BankAtlantic
• Last Place: Bank of America

Mid-Atlantic

• Winner: Northwest Savings Bank
• Last Place: Citibank

Midwest

• Winner: Commerce Bank
• Last Place: Charter One

New England

• Winner: Eastern Bank
• Last Place: Chase/WaMu

North Central

• Winner: Flagstar Bank
• Last Place: Bank of America

Northwest

• Winner: Sterling Savings Bank
• Last Place: Chase/WaMu

South Central

• Winner: Arvest Bank
• Last Place: Bank of America

Southeast

• Winner: United Community Bank
• Last Place: Bank of America

Southwest

• Winner: Arvest Bank
• Last Place: KeyBank

Texas

• Winner: Frost National Bank
• Last Place: BBVA Compass Bank

The 2010 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study is based on responses from nearly 48,000 participants regarding their experiences with their banking provider. The study analyzes customer satisfaction with the retail banking experience based on six factors: account activities, account information, facility, fees, problem resolution and product offerings. The study was fielded in January and February 2010. You can download the entire study’s results here.

“With free checking accounts becoming less prevalent in national banks, credit unions can be an invaluable resource for the average consumer.”
— Greg McBride,
Bankrate.com

According to a study by Bankrate.com, 39 of the 50 largest credit unions in the U.S. still offer free checking.

Key Question: With new regulations and increasing pressure to generate fee income, how many of these 39 credit unions  will still be offering free checking in 2011?

Bankrate surveyed the 50 largest credit unions across the country for its 2010 Credit Union Checking Study.

Among those credit unions not offering free checking, the highest monthly fee was $10 while the lowest was $1.

Minimum Opening Balance

Just over half of the credit unions surveyed, 27 out of 50, do not require a minimum opening balance on their free checking accounts. Of those requiring a minimum opening balance, the average was $16. Though many credit unions in the survey require $1 as an opening amount, the study found three that required a $100 minimum. Teachers FCU and Addison Avenue FCU had the highest minimum-opening balances: $2,500 for a 0.15% and 0.05% yield respectively.

Interest APY

19 of the credit unions surveyed had interest-bearing checking accounts. The average yield was 0.30% and the highest was 1.01% at Police & Fire FCU in Philadelphia.

Restrictions, Conditions & Fine Print

Forty-one of the credit unions have no balance requirement or monthly fee on their checking accounts.

Almost all of the credit unions, 47 out of 50, allowed unlimited monthly transactions. State Employees’ Credit Union, one of the three credit unions putting restrictions on their free accounts, lets members write up to 50 checks per month but are charged 20¢ per check thereafter. It’s hardly worth noting, so why not make it free?

American Airlines FCU allowed four free transactions — deposits or withdrawals — by phone or in person, and charges $2 for subsequent transactions.

“The average consumer does 25 to 30 transactions per month on an account,” Hank Israel, director at financial consulting firm Novantas, told Bankrate.

Only one of the credit unions surveyed charged for debit card transactions. The State Employees’ Credit Union of Maryland assessed a 25¢ fee for each PIN-based purchase with a check card.

In the 2010 Consumer Billing and Payment Trends report, Fiserv, a leading financial technology company, shares the results of its survey involving 3,029 internet consumers. The 2010 survey shows online banking, bill payment and e-bill usage continues to grow, and that the online bill payment population has changed over the last decade. Furthermore, the study confirms that online bill pay is both sticky and a strong correlating indicator of profitability.

Online banking and bill pay becomes mainstream

Currently, 72.5 million U.S. households, 80% of all households with per access, use online banking, while 36.4 million households, 40% of all households with internet access, use online bill payment.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of households that use online banking increased more than six-fold, and the number that use online bill payment increased nearly eight-fold. Online bill payers now represent a wide cross-section of the U.S. population, and women have edged out men as the primary users of the service.

In 2002, men represented the majority of online bill payers, at 61%, and they maintained the lead in usage of the service through 2009. In 2010 the tables turned, with women edging ahead to represent 51% of online bill payers.

“The face of online bill payment has changed significantly over the last decade,” said Geoff Knapp, vice president, Online Banking and Consumer Insights, Fiserv. “Early users were tech-savvy and tended to be young and male, as is typical with new technology. Now it’s moms and seniors and people at all income levels using the service. Online bill payment has become mainstream, and there’s still room to grow.”

Online bill payment has grown substantially during the last 10 years, corresponding with a massive reduction in the use of paper checks. While utilization of other forms of payment have remained relatively stable, paper checks have declined from 61% of all payments in 2000 to 26% in 2010, while online bill payments have grown from 12% to 45% of all payments.

Bill pay is sticky, leads to higher-value services

Consumers who pay bills online have consistently used more services from their financial institution than the average customer, with usage of additional services becoming even more pronounced in recent years. The connection between online bill payment and consumer loyalty has remained strong as well.

In 2005, consumers who used the online bill payment service at their financial institution were 8% more likely than the average customer to have a savings account at the same institution, and by 2010 that number had increased to 13%. The percentage of customers who used online bill payment and also had a mortgage with their financial institution increased from 2% in 2005 to 10% in 2010. In addition, 49% of customers who use online bill payment said they were less likely to switch to another financial institution as a result of their experience with the service.

In just two years, the number of mobile phone users who conducted one or more banking services via their mobile phone increased from 23% in 2008 to 30% in 2010. The number of mobile banking users who receive or pay bills via their mobile phone jumped from 18% in 2008 to 30% in the same time period. This is most likely due to the increasing adoption of smart phones.

To hear more about e-bills and their growing popularity, you can head over to Fiserv’s website and listen to a podcast (www.fiserv.com/trends.htm).

comScore’s 2010 State of Online Banking report validates some widely accepted beliefs among financial marketers, namely that people are shifting more and more of their routine transactions online and away from offline channels. The report was based on the survey results of more than 2,500 U.S. internet users (you can download a free copy here immediately after supplying your basic contact info). While the report confirms some intuitive concepts, it also begs some tough questions about issues like customer service and interest rates.

#1) Free Checking

2009: 70%
2010: 67%
Change: Down -3%

Maybe free checking has become something consumers expect so its importance is waning? Nevertheless, free checking is still the most critical aspect for new accounts, and is nearly twice as important as any other factor. Financial marketers are right to wring their hands over the introduction of new fees and/or the elimination of free checking accounts.

#3) Proximity of Branches/ATMs

2009: 40%
2010: 36%
Change: Down -4%

This confirms the intuitive belief that more and more people are increasingly comfortable managing their checking accounts online. Branches may be less important than they once were, but they are still one of the most effective ways to grow new relationships. And don’t forget about ATMs. “ATMs are an absolute necessity,” comScore observes in its report.

#4) Bill Pay

2009: 23%
2010: 24%
Change: Up +1%

A combination of factors are probably in play here. 1) Online bill pay is more established, with awareness and acceptance on the rise. 2) People’s overall level of comfort with online security is increasing. 3) PFM providers like Mint are fueling people’s interest in using online tools for routine transactions.

#5) Quality of Customer Service

2009: 4%
2010: 22%
Change: Up +18%

This looks like not one, but two statistical anomalies. First, how can anything — even customer service — become five times more important over a 12-month period? People may be prickly about banks and banking right now, but their feelings aren’t likely to translate into wildly higher service expectations. Second, and perhaps more importantly, why would “quality of service” score so low in 2009? If comScore’s data is right, more people wanted free mobile banking than good service in 2009. Despite the wonkiness in comScore’s metric, customer service ranks relatively lower as a priority for new accounts than most financial marketers would believe.

#6) High Interest Rate

2009: 32%
2010: 18%
Change: Down -14%

That’s a big drop, but what’s the explanation? Has the fervor and excitement surrounding high-interest checking accounts waned?

#9) Free Mobile Banking

2009: 5%
2010: 9%
Change: Up +4%

People’s interest along with adoption rates are still relatively low, but they are climbing fast. Someday soon, consumers will simply expect mobile banking and it won’t be optional — just like they do with online banking today.

Bank credibility suffers, few Americans find statements by financial institutions believable

It’s no surprise then that very few Americans say they believe financial institutions. But the researchers at Harris decided to go out and quantify the level of distrust. In April, Harris conducted an online poll of U.S. adults aged 18 and over.

Among the findings:

Gen Y is the most trusting. Or maybe Gen Y is just too young, too idealistic or too naïve to know better. Gen Y is across the board more likely to find statements made by financial companies more believable than older generations. Only 28% of Gen Y don’t believe statements made by banks, whereas 45% of Boomers distrust banks’ claims.

Banks are relatively credible. The operative word here is “relatively.” The Harris poll clearly shows trust in all types of financial institutions is, well… dismal. But what banks have to say is more believable than investment firms, mortgage lenders and credit card companies. Only accounting firms are seen as more credible than banks.

Credit card companies are pretty much downright liars. Nearly two-thirds of respondents distrust what credit card companies have to say, a full 26 points worse than banks (wow). It would seem that years and years of microscopic, multipage disclosures about things like Universal Default have finally caught up to credit card issuers.

Democrats distrust banks more than Republicans. 44% of Democrats don’t believe what banks have to say, but only 30% of Republicans feel the same way. A whopping 70% of Democrats don’t believe anything credit card companies have to say. Unsurprisingly, Democrats’ faith in government agencies is better; only 40% are likely to disbelieve financial regulators, while significantly more Republicans (65%) don’t think these governmental bodies can be trusted.

How believable are statements made by these companies?

Breakdown of respondents who said ‘not believable at all’

Bottom Line: The issue is one of trust. It takes a long time for any industry to build up levels of trust that can help them weather crises. Since this crisis is one that negatively impacts people’s wallets, trust erodes even more quickly than normal, and takes much longer to rebuild.

With rewards checking accounts projected to become a more popular option for deposits in coming years, Bankrate.com has released its first annual 2010 Rewards Checking Survey. The survey takes a look at the requirements consumers must meet in order to qualify for the high-interest checking rate. Among the findings:

• The average annual percentage yield for rewards checking accounts maxed out at 3.3%. Bankrate found that 58 of the banks and credit unions it surveyed offer high-yield checking accounts, with rates ranging from a high of 6.17 percent to a low of 0.75 percent
• The average default APY if not keeping up with the minimum requirements was 0.16%, a significant drop-off. The drop off in yield among study participants ranged anywhere between 0.5% and a dismal 0.04%.
• The balance cap for earning the high APY was, most commonly, $25,000. Any additional money in the account  exceeding the balance cap earns the default rate rather than the high-yield rate. Three of the accounts surveyed have no balance cap. Of those, two offer their rates nationwide.
• 95% of financial institutions with high-interest checking require a certain number of debit card transactions to be made each month in order to receive the highest APY. The average amount of debit card transactions required was 10-11, although a few require as many as 15.
• Mandatory bill pay is required for 35% of high-interest accounts, ranging from logging in to as many as four bill payments per month. One bill payment per month is the most common requirement.

Bankrate surveyed 211 institutions for this study. Fifty-eight of those surveyed offer high-yield checking accounts, or 27%. Of those offering these accounts, 41 of the 58 are available to consumers nationally.

BECU, a credit union, offered the sweetest yield of the bunch in Bankrate’s survey — 6.17 percent. However, BECU imposes a $500 balance cap. That means you’ll earn 6.17 percent on only the first $500 you keep in the account.

“Reward checking is typically twice as profitable as free checking and the attrition rate is half of what you would see with free checking accounts,” says Gabe Krajicek, CEO of BancVue, the Austin, Texas-based company credited with introducing the financial industry to high-interest checking accounts.

“Consumers are looking for ways to boost their interest earnings in this low rate environment,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com. “Rewards checking accounts offer very compelling yields as long as consumers are able to meet each of the account requirements on a monthly basis.”

Callahan & Associates, the credit union industry’s leading analytics firm and publishers of CreditUnions.com, have just released their 2010 Credit Union Directory. Comparing this year’s directory against last year’s, The Financial Brand has noted 75 substantive name changes.

Some of these name changes may be due to mergers, but most frequently, credit unions change names for one of these three reasons:

1. The credit union’s primary sponsor has disappeared, or dwindled to such a point that it can no longer sustain membership.
2. The credit union feels its name is geographically limiting and/or exclusive to certain types of people (e.g., teachers).
3. The credit union can no longer use another organization’s brand name. This is typically triggered by a request from the primary sponsor’s lawyers, but sometimes by another financial institution asserting trademark rights.

From this year’s new names:

• 11 credit unions included the word “Community”: Arlington Community, Champion Community, Community, Community Driven, Memberfocus Commmunity, My Community, NMTW Community, Prestige Community, Total Community, Valley One Community and Vue Community.
• 7 reduced their names to acronyms: CEFCU, CSE, MaPS, MCT, ME/CU, NMTW and USE.
• 7 are coined names: Altana, Aventa, Cinfed, Genisys, Meritrust, TruStone and Vue Community.
• 3 use the number “one”: Alabama One, Metro 1 and Valley One Community.
• 3 credit unions ditched the word “First” in their name, while one put it in: University First.
• 2 credit unions used alphanumeric constructions: Med5 and Metro 1.

It might be time to update The Financial Brand’s list of The Top 50 Most Distinctive Credit Union Names. Which ones do you think belong in the list?

Further Reading: Anyone in the financial marketing arena should know “How to Look Up a Financial Trademark in 10 Easy Steps.” And here are some of other stories about credit union name changes as reported here at The Financial Brand:

• The do’s and don’ts of CU acronyms
• The ‘Community Credit Union’ fallacy
• The most common words in credit union names
• What does ‘Federal’ do for FCUs?
• From “America’s who?” to “ACU who?”
• Advanta forces Avanta to become ‘Altana’
• Credit union picks ‘Wildfire’ as new name
• Two credit unions merge to create ‘Genisys’
• Credit union completes transformation to ‘Centric’
• Credit union picks ‘Aventa’ as new moniker

Also, please contact The Financial Brand for your copy of “The Credit Union Guide to The Name Change Decision,” a comprehensive, 33-page analysis of the strategic renaming issues that apply to any financial institution considering a name change.

The Financial Brand sat down with Nancy Radermecher, President of John Ryan, a global retail marketing agency specializing in total store messaging systems, to talk about digital signage for financial institutions.

Who’s using digital signage correctly in the financial industry?

There are many good examples of financial institutions using digital signage to engage customers at the appropriate times and places. Here are three:

In ING Direct’s cafes, they use digital content to both entertain and engage customers who stop by for an espresso and might not be aware that ING is indeed a bank. So, their content has to pull double duty. It has to introduce visitors to ING’s gospel of savings and also demonstrate how ING’s direct-only banking concept actually works.

Caja Mediterráneo is a client in Spain that uses its network to deliver brand and promotional messaging in eight different languages and to convey community-oriented content, such as help-wanted and real-estate listings, that is both current and unique to each branch. Most, the bank’s product messaging is tied to each individual branch’s sales results for the prior week. Just try doing that with paper posters and brochures!

CIMB in Malaysia is another client who has used digital media to help improve staff efficiency, move customers to self-service and reduce perceived wait time. My favorite example is their “queuing tree,” which tracks wait time in a highly visual format. As more customers take a queue number, the tree populates with leaves. When the leaves turn red, staff knows that it’s all hands on deck to alleviate the wait. At that point, other screens in the branch turn to more entertainment-oriented content.

What are the big mistakes financial institutions
frequently make with their digital signage?

“Locally relevant content” is the whole reason banks get into digital signage.
– Nancy Radermecher,
John Ryan Global

One of the biggest mistakes they make is in viewing digital signage as a technical problem for IT to solve, when in fact it’s first and foremost a marketing challenge. The technology has to serve marketers goals.

“Locally relevant content” is the whole reason banks get into digital signage in the first place. But when the sourcing of digital signage is left to IT, marketers typically end up with a network that either is not capable of localization or requires far too many staffers and ad-agency resources than is feasible. That’s when many banks give up and simply run CNN on their screens, which, by the way, is the next biggest mistake. Too many institutions just run cable shows on their screens and in doing so miss out on a great opportunity to communicate.

How do you know digital signage works? What’s the ROI?

That’s the ultimate question, isn’t it? Obviously, most people want to know how an investment in digital signage will boost sales. But it’s seldom easy to tie digital signage as a direct cause of product sales, because there are other influences in a customer’s decision to purchase a financial product. Digital signage is rarely deployed in isolation. A promotional spot running on the screens at the branch is usually one piece of a larger campaign that includes TV, print and online ads. So, determining which of all those mediums actually prompted the buy decision is not always easy. What we do know, though, is that banks can achieve measurable and meaningful gains by fine-tuning their messaging to branches based on CRM, geodemographic and patronage information. Two of our major clients are seeing regular sales lift in excess of 10% by bringing the intelligence once reserved for direct marketing into their POS efforts.

We also know that digital media improves the overall efficiency of point of sale marketing and have seen in some specific cases:

• 200% increase in awareness of bank offers
• 400% increase in recall of two or more messages
• 62% reduction of perceived wait time

Where’s digital signage going? What’s the future hold?

We’re getting past the stage where banks are questioning whether they need a digital signage network. The question is quickly becoming, “How can we make the most of this investment?” So, even as banks get their heads around the basics of digital messaging, I think they are going to look for other ways to leverage their investment. Here are some ways they might do that:

• Education – As educational marketing takes off, we’re seeing a lot of interest in using the digital signage network to deliver educational content to the branch. For instance, a bank might set up a temporary theater in the lobby and having hourly shows on topics like debt management, rebuilding your nest egg, or mortgage relief.
• Guided sales – With the use of touch screens and other interactive devices (e.g., Microsoft Surface) it’s possible to provide sales reps with something better than brochures as they walk customers through products, features and personalized what-if scenarios.
• Direct mail fulfillment – Some of our clients have run “scan and win” direct-mail campaigns that invited customers to bring their letters in to the branch, run them under a scanner to see if they’ve won a big prize. Sweepstakes are nothing new, but when you combine it with direct mail, the amount and quality of data you can collect is impressive.
• Staff training – If you can communicate to customers, why not to employees? Some banks run employee-only programming before opening time, or run employee-only content on screens that can be seen only in backstage areas.
• Customer experience – As I mentioned earlier, we had an instance where one of our clients used digital signage to reduce the perceived wait time for customers by 62%. How else can we use digital content to affect the ambiance of the branch and shape the customer experience? I believe this will be an area of greater experimentation going forward.
• Feedback – Digital signage makes it possible to pose questions to customers about different financial topics, say, as they wait in the queue, and then use their collective responses to influence the content that plays on-screen.

What I intentionally left out are Minority Report scenarios in which customers are identified upon entering the bank and presented with personalized selling propositions. Aside from the technology companies selling those kinds of approaches, I don’t think there’s a lot of mainstream interest in this. Maybe someday, but not in the current economic climate. For now, digital signage is appealing to banks only to the extent that it can solve existing business problems.

How much time should be spent managing a digital signage system?

We’ve said that locally relevant messaging is the key to ROI. However, most banks do not have the staff in place to manage large volumes of message permutations through a manual approach. For that reason, we are working with our clients to develop rules-based mechanisms to direct the right messages to the right branches. We’re also developing techniques to “assemble” content on the fly – again based on business rules. This “set it and forget it” approach lets our clients manage thousands of message permutations with very minimal in-house staff.

How often should messages be rotated for “freshness?”

It’s always good to give customers a fresh experience each time they visit the branch. To that end, we make a lot of use of “dynamic content,” which might include news-related content, stock-market information or weather updates – all of which update daily. It’s important to embed visual and other “clues” in the content to let customers know that they are watching the latest information. Product and service messaging is a little more long-lasting. We might aim to refresh those messages every four to six weeks, though these, too, can benefit from the addition of time-sensitive calls to action or other techniques to give them a sense of urgency.

What’s the right mix of messages — brand, product/service awareness, promotional? How much third-party content should there be?

It does vary from one client to the next and all depends on the bank’s marketing strategy. That said, we almost always employ a mix of third-party (news, weather, stock, entertainment, etc.) content with bank and community messages. Like editing a newspaper or TV broadcast, the art lies in how you mix all those elements.

What are the latest trends in digital signage?

We see that digital marketing – across all sectors – is thriving when used as an aid to enhance the shopper experience and build sales through coherent, locally relevant messaging. Classic digital-out-of-home (DOOH), which is ad-based, seems to be struggling as a model. There are an increasing number of ad-based networks that are moving toward a more customer-centric and “intelligent” model-even if the networks are still co-funded by advertisers. The Wal-Mart Smart Network is just one example of that.

What percentage of financial institutions are already using digital signage?

We don’t have hard numbers on actual install rates in the U.S. We know from our survey of 64 European and South African banks that 34, or 53%, have piloted a digital signage system, and 23 of the 34 have already rolled out or are preparing to roll out.

What’s a basic system cost? For one branch? 5 branches? 50 branches?

Obviously one branch is less expensive than fifty. Beyond that, at least when you’re talking about larger banks, the cost is dependent on several factors-but primarily, the type and number of screens.

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Nancy Radermecher serves as President of John Ryan, a global retail marketing agency specializing in total store messaging systems. Her responsibilities include global operations, finance administration and sales and marketing. During her 20-year career with John Ryan, Radermecher has devised retail marketing strategies for clients throughout the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Asia.

Among the clients with whom she has worked are Toyota Financial Services, UniCredit and Lloyds TSB. She has also served customers through the establishment of John Ryan offices in Madrid, London, Sydney, Lisbon, Milan and Tokyo.

Prior to joining John Ryan, Ms. Radermecher was Vice President of a marketing communications agency specializing in the personal financial services market. She also served as managing editor of a weekly banking magazine.

Radermecher holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Grinnell College, in Iowa.