North America Bytes

Coast Bank of Florida has chosen Raymond James Financial Services (RJFS) to provide investment services through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Coast Financial Partners (CFP).

Raymond James' investment services and resources that will be available through CFP include: financial planning services, non-proprietary investment products, client-approved mutual fund research, comprehensive insurance and annuity services, portfolio management, trust and estate planning, retirement-plan consulting, fee-based investment accounts, extensive equity research; corporate, government and municipal bonds online trading and account access for clients via the Internet.

A relatively new bank created in 2000, Coast Bank of Florida already manages two branch locations and more than $120 million in assets.

"While our staff has outstanding experience in this market and industry, in order to be truly competitive, we wanted also to provide financial advisement services," said Gerald Anthony, president of Coast Bank of Florida "Raymond James has an excellent track record."

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Bank One Corporation has selected Automated Financial Systems' AFSSolution as the platform for standardization of its middle market credit process.

The AFSSolution, a delivery consisting of AFS' software and consulting services, is expected to support dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and aggressive loan portfolio growth.

As part of the AFSSolution delivery Bank One will upgrade its existing AFS Level III software solution to the most recent version of the software for commercial, consumer, commercial real estate, asset based lending, dealer floor planning, budget tracking, and syndications. Additionally, the Bank will deploy AFSXpress workflow capabilities to enable Bank One to radically improve both new loan booking and customer service operations.

Bank One will also implement AFS Lender Workstation, a Web-based delivery of dynamic and comprehensive reporting to all levels of the organization to support new revenue opportunities.

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Twelve community banks in Alabama have selected CONNECTIONS, a marketing and sales software solution from Marketing Solutions Inc. (MSI), Birmingham, Ala.

CONNECTIONS provides community banks with a simple, easy to use and cost effective approach for marketing and sales. MSI uses data mining techniques built on "event driven" criteria to generate direct mail marketing letters with coupon offers, postcards, email marketing messages, and customer call lists to targeted households. These programs are delivered to a specific household based on what CONNECTIONS predicts is the product/service they are most likely to buy next.

The twelve Alabama banks currently utilizing CONNECTIONS are Bank of Pine Hill, First Federal of the South, First National Bank of Brewton, First National Bank of Scottsboro, First Tuskegee Bank, First United Security Bank, Monroe County Bank, Pinnacle Bank, Peoples Bank & Trust, Robertson Banking Company, South Alabama Bank, and United Bank Atmore.

"We have made CONNECTIONS available to all employees," said Robert Jones, president and CEO, United Bank Atmore. "The information is easy to access and can be used for planning, calling, and tracking and rewarding. It is our bank's core sales tool that is woven into the sales culture of the bank."