August 2009 Aug 4, 2009 Hi : In this issue: ITA Annual Conference This year's conference features Gene Maloney from Federated Investors discussing Fiduciary Risk Management. Also from Federated, Linda Duessel, a Senior Portfolio Manager will share an economic outlook. Other topics include estate recovery, tax law updates and a Washington Update from the American Bankers Association. Skip Fox will present recent developments in estate planning on day two followed by Michael Kitches' presentation "Understanding the Credit Crisis." There are also special sessions on Oct. 8 for operations personnel. Encourage your operations staff to attend! Continuing education credit hours for CLE (8.75), CTFA (applied) and CFP (8.5) are approved. See the ITA Who are your peers? Or are you peerless? Turns out members of the Iowa Trust Association can have it both ways. This year, the ITA is holding the first peer group meetings for Iowa trust officers. We will gather on Wednesday, October 6 at 2:00 PM.These meetings will be held the afternoon prior to the ITA Annual Conference at the Courtyard by Marriott in Ankeny. There is no charge for you to attend. Iowa bankers have formal peer groups where they meet to share ideas and discuss issues in their respective areas, and now trust officers will, too. If you have previously expressed an interest in attending such a meeting, you have already received an e-mail with the names and addresses of others in your group. If you are interested in attending, please contact Two groups have been identified, based on assets under management. In Ankeny, details of future activities will be discussed, such as frequency of meetings, locations and logistics. We hope you will find peer groups to be another valuable benefit of your membership in the ITA. The Advanced Trust Administration School will be held September 22-24, 2009, in Topeka and will provide a more in-depth course for those attendees who are directly involved in administration. The curriculum focuses on advanced account administration, estate planning techniques, tax issues, compliance, ethics, investments, and unique assets. Over the years I have been associated with the Schools of Banking in various capacities. I attended The School of Trust and Financial Services many years ago; I serve as the liaison between the ITA and the Schools of Banking, I sit on the Board for the Trust Schools; I am on the faculty and teach the basic fiduciary income tax course; and lastly as Senior Trust Officer at First National Bank, I have sent all of my trust officers through the basic and advanced trust schools. A notable feature of all the Trust Schools is the opportunity for students to develop a peer network within the industry, while receiving the most current information available from instructors who live their subject daily. The attendees and faculty traditionally have come from 10-14 states each year. I firmly believe in the Trust Schools and urge you to check them out on their website at This cost effective brochure is 5½” x 8 ½” and can be personalized with your bank name, address, city state, phone and web address. Educate your trust clients about the qualities that make an effective trustee with these helpful brochures. Order a supply of these brochures today. To see the complete text of the brochure, go to Additionally, seniors may find their social network fragmented as friends move to lowercost parts of the country and they may find their lives disrupted from the increased demands of other family members who are also being buffeted by a deteriorating economy. The economy is taking an equally heavy toll on those who work with seniors. Dwindling resources, financial scandals and fear of the future are causing many seniors to scale down or re-think the use of professional counsel. In order to succeed today, professionals must understand how the slump in the economy is impacting their senior clients financially and emotionally. They also need to stay on top of changing trends, programs and policies that could help or harm their clients. Finally, they must have strategies and tools in place to help communicate with existing and prospective senior clients. This report has been prepared to provide insight, advice and tactics for dealing with the complex issues facing professionals who serve seniors. It covers: Questions about charitable trust registration TRUSTCOMPARE is the industry's leading performance comparative solution to help you accurately assess and improve your performance, profitability and productivity. It is the only comparative, comprehensive ratio system for measuring trust performance, allowing you to compare your core metrics to a peer group and to the universe of subscribers. How Does It Work? Trust information is collected from subscribers, then analyzed to provide comparative trend and benchmarking tools and management information reports. Product and service results are measured by asset, income, expense and profit. And, growth in income, fees, expenses and profit are measured at both the departmental and product level. We also offer an advanced business analytics level to provide line of business and product line profitability comparisons. If you'd like to learn more about TRUSTCOMPARE, visit If you have questions, you may contact Loyd Pohl, at To add yourself to this mailing list, click here. To remove yourself from this mailing list, click here. Published with Newsletter Ease |