CEO Letter: Relationship Building and Maintenance
January 27, 2006

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A letter from AFP's president and CEO

Dear AFP Members:

Relationships, in business and in life, tend to be easier to maintain in good times than in bad, yet the ones that do survive a crisis can emerge the stronger.

This month we are looking at a number of types of business relationships, the most important being those that corporations have with their bankers.

AFP member Bob Page of Amalgamated Bank of Chicago writes about trends that will change the way corporations and their bankers will do business with each other in The Future of Banking Relationships. He explains that as many types of services become commoditized, opportunities may present themselves for smaller banks.

As with our personal relationships, those with our bankers must be renewed and refreshed from time to time. Several bankers weigh in on this subject in Hints for Successful Banking Relationships in 2006.

As you’ve seen in articles on the AFP Web site, recent hurricanes prompted a tremendous outpouring of stories about the relationships that helped many AFP members survive the crisis.That’s why AFP's managing director of communications, Elizabeth Johns, spoke with Mike Fossaceca of JPMorgan Chase on camera about best practices for business continuity planning from a banking perspective in Wake-Up Call. Meanwhile, William Luehrmann of Occidental Petroleum Corp. provides the corporate viewpoint in the article Uncertain Times.

Now, we all know that relationships go both ways, so banking relationships are not all about banks providing services to corporations. There are also relationships that help banks themselves maintain viability in times of disaster.

In one dramatic case, a vendor whisked the management of Whitney Bank out of the Gulf Coast and into a conference room in the vendor’s San Francisco offices, where management was able to maintain a connection to the FedWire. Now, I call that the ultimate banking relationship, and you can read about it in our Regional Notebook section.

Jim A. Kaitz
President and CEO
Association for Financial Professionals

Copyright © 2006 Association for Financial Professionals. All Rights Reserved.