Cashing In on Convenience

For customers who like to do their banking along with the family shopping, the San Antonio Savings Association has opened nine branches inside local Handy-Andy supermarkets, right among the soap and spinach. The Bank of Pasadena has a limousine service that carries banking directly to customers who cannot get to the bank; a small truck with a two-way radio wheels around town doing business for The Endicott National Bank of Endicott, N.Y. Chicago's Home Federal Savings and Loan can provide instant mortgage appraisals for telephone callers by dispatching a bank officer to their homes in a radio-equipped car that regularly prowls the city.

These are just a few of the new services and conveniences that banks and savings and loan associations all over the U.S. are offering in a scramble for business. With more money in their vaults than ever before, the banks want to make more loans. Big companies are borrowing proportionately less now because high profits and liberalized depreciation allowances have made them very liquid; so the bankers are becoming increasingly solicitous toward the small customer. Since they want his checking and savings accounts as well as his loan business, they are using almost every lure that money can buy.

Borrow by Night. Bankers' hours are gradually becoming customers' hours; many banks now stay open as late as 6 p.m. on weekdays, and even open their doors on weekends. This week San Francisco's Golden Gate National Bank will shatter tradition by opening a downtown branch that will do business from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. Particularly for people who work at night and cannot get to the bank without disturbing daytime sleep, Manhattan's First National City Bank is pushing a "Dial-a-Loan" service, in which loans can be sought and approved by telephone. Washington's District of Columbia National Bank, only eight months old, opens its doors after hours for customers who need service, even dispatches a bank executive to their homes.

Like the District of Columbia's National, many banks now waive service charges to win customers, figuring that the money they made on service will be more than equalled by new business. To win the community's approval, scores of banks have set up free community rooms for Boy Scout and P.T.A. meetings. Some also act as ticket brokers for plays or ball games; the Bank of Indiana in Gary books plane and hotel reservations anywhere in the world for its customers, has outdoor "walkup windows" to serve them. New York's Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. has started an offbeat radio and TV advertising campaign to attract more customers, is offering the fashion-conscious checkbooks whose covers come in "currency green," "ingot gold," "bond beige" or simulated cobra and leopard.

Tailored Services. No longer content with passing out green stamps and other gifts, banks are also increasingly tailoring their services to specialized needs. The First National Bank of Boston boasts a "Dollars for Scholars" plan that stretches out the financing of a college education and provides an automatic insurance plan should a parent die. California's Beverly Hills National Bank has a "Career Girl Accounts" plan, in which young women who open checking accounts simultaneously make credit applications, later can get quick loans.

One of the biggest departures from traditional policy is the trend among banks to open lines of credit for all depositors. When a depositor overdraws, the bank automatically peps up his account with a quick loan, thus avoids customer complaints about bounced checks and collects for itself an interest payment on the loan (usually 1% monthly); Washington's D.C. National thus covers overdrafts of up to $1,000. All together, the revolution in services is enough to make a customer laugh on his way to the bank--if he is still old-fashioned enough to make the trip.

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