are carving out different nich-
es," said Mr. Dunn. "I was struck
by the dissimilarities in where
our interests were, and in what
we considered as pressing is-
sues.
"If the banks were all small-
er and if there were more of us,
that could be good for customers.
The issue for the customer be-
comes to find the bank who is
serving your specific need. If the
bank and the consumer have
common goals, you are much
more likely to have a successful
relationship.
"In our case, it is small busi-
ness. We really work very hard
at creating innovative target
products. We do focus groups
over and over. We have com-
mercial accounts saying what
they want and don't want," said
Mr. Dunn.
"Three or four things came
through. One concern was about
our very long (banking) hours
that kind of sur-
round the busi-
Teller
transactions
nessman's hours.
are 10 times
The hours at the
more
banking center at
expensive
Franklin's West 12
than ATMs.
Mile Road head-
quarters and in
Birmingham are 8 a.m. until 8
p.m. , Monday through Friday.
But aie lobby is loaded from 6 to
8 in the evening, and to a lesser
degree, the first thing in the
morning.
"So what's happened," said
Mr. Dunn, "is they've concluded
their business day, and now
they want to take their receipts
and put them in the bank. They
want to get the whole day's re-
ceipts in, and they don't want to
interrupt their day ... so we en-
courage local businesses to use
the ATMs, and we do not charge
for it.
"Deposits are still free every-
where. The other banks vari-
ously don't allow it, and for sure,
none of them encourage it."
However, that is not the
case at the Bank of Bloomfield
Hills, southeastern Michigan's
only private bank. "We current-
ly absorb, and always have
absorbed, interbank charges,"
said Lori Miller, an account of-
ficer at the N. Woodward Av-
enue bank.
"We are now reviewing
whether to pick up the new
access fees by machine owners,"
said Ms. Miller, adding that
the Bank of Bloomfield Hills
tracks banks not charging
access fees and directs its cus-
tomers to use their machines.
In addition to Franklin, D&N
(the former Detroit & Northern)
Savings, Standard Federal and
several credit unions do not cur-
rently charge access fees.
NBD currently does not
charge access fees, but has said
it will probably start charging in

footrace in terms of price corn-
petition long before it is neces-
sary to get legal intervention."
Another obvious irony is that
if increased ATM access fees en-
courage usage of standard teller
systems in banks that are al-
ready consolidating and closing
out branches, and entry-level
tellers are increasingly harder
to find, the industry is creating
a quandary for itself
"In that context, it couldn't
happen at a worse time," said
Mr. Dunn. "All the banks are
having a difficult time getting
beginning tellers and providing
adequate services at the branch-
es. So you're doing something
which risks driving customers
.back into those facilities. It is not
a good idea.
"If we were in the middle of a
recession with people lined up
at the employment office, it
might be a different story."
Mr. Dunn sees big banks con-
tinuing to get very strong in the
commodity-type, large-volume
homogeneous products, such as
credit cards and some consumer
loans. If you are buying car loans
from a car dealership, there is
no question that you would have
some success there in scale. He
remembers one banker who said
he wanted to organize the loan
customers so that they were
"granular units" that could be
managed, monitored, and would
do high volumes.
Because of that continued
movement by the major banks,
smaller banks like Franklin are
finding success in more hetero-
geneous, lower-volume products.
Like virtually everything else,
it is a niche market.
"As you talk to different small
bankers, you realize that we ATM page 72

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