Chicagoan works to make U.S. Bank a force in Windy City

Northwestern Financial Review, Apr 1-Apr 14, 2005 by Hilgert, Jackie

Dan Reisner, market president for U.S. Bank in Chicago, believes his bank has all the trappings of a worldclass financial institution. The problem, as Reisner explained recently, is nobody in Chicago knows it. But that's changing.

Reisner joined the nation's sixth-largest institution last October when it consolidated the reputations and constituencies of the Chicagoland holdings of Milwaukee-based Firstar. He's leading a charge to bring U.S. Bank and its Five Star Service Guarantee into the consciousness of Chicago's middle market business segment.

"People don't have an appropriate impression of what our capabilities are," Reisner said. Consolidating the bank's holdings into one regional location has gone a long way toward helping improve its image in a marketplace where Bank One casts a long shadow.

The decision by U.S. Bank to open a Chicago headquarters came on the heels of the announcement by J.P. Morgan Chase to acquire Bank One. Reisner would like to chalk the timing up to mere coincidence. "I think the existing franchise here isn't where it needs to be," Reisner said. The Bank One deal didn't affect their decision at all, he added.

The move is more about the future of the industry in the United States. "Lending money has become a commodity," Reisner said. "If you think about what a CFO's life is like day to day, they don't sit around thinking about their term sheet; they wonder Did the deposit get made? ... Did the check get cashed?... Did the transaction clear?... Did the wire go through ?" Transactional accuracy and execution are the reasons U.S. Bank will, and is, winning customers, he said.

Since last October, the bank's Chicago region has seen a 17 percent growth in new commercial loan business, a 10 percent growth in consumer loans and an 8 percent growth in demand deposit accounts. The bank also opened a street level branch in the financial district's historic Rookery Building, where the bank uses three floors for its regional headquarters. And, it is preparing to open a full-service branch where Michigan Avenue intersects Upper Wacker Drive at the south end of the city's toniest shopping district - The Magnificent Mile.

In the six months since the headquarters has been operational, Reisner has been busy hiring bankers and pursuing middle market companies, firms with between $10 million and $50 million in revenues. He's leveraging U.S. Bank's efficiency ratio as a key selling point. "The impact of that [efficiency ratio] is our capital is cheaper than our competitors', so if we have to compete on price, we can," Reisner explained. U.S. Bank boasts an efficiency ratio of 40 percent compared to competitors, averaging ratios closer to 60 percent.

One gets the sense when talking to Reisner, however, that he'd rather talk about service than cost of funds. "We're obsessed with service quality and that's what's going to dictate our success with our business customers," he said. "My term sheets look just like everybody else's, but at the end of the day, we're not winning business on price, we're winning business on service quality."

Recently U.S. Bank won over Northwestern University in nearby Evanston, where it opened an on-campus branch and became "bank of choice" for students and faculty. That branch, he said, is fast becoming one the most successful in the bank's system. The bank also just closed a large deal with a nursing home and assisted living operator.

Reisner spent the majority of his career building a middle market advisory practice for Merrill Lynch in the western United States, then returned to his hometown to work the middle market for LaSalle. When the U.S. Bank opportunity came up, Reisner saw the potential immediately. "It's a sensational product that is so underrepresented," he said. With the credit card processing capability alone, he said, the bank can offer payment solutions to companies more efficiently and more competitively. The efficiency of technology allows the bank to be more aggressive when prospecting for business - a process helped along by new customers who, Reisner said, have begun to share with others the experience they're having with U.S. Bank.

"We're not making huge statements about where we're growing," Reisner said. "It's just step by step; we're winning customers one by one ... and we're keeping them."

By Jackie Hilgert