O business

Pity the Poor Tellers

Money Markets, IRAs: Who's Paying What?

By JOSEPH R. ZKLNIK Interested in interest rates? Unless I get at least two phone calls (family members excluded) indicating somebody is reading this monthly financial roundup. I'm going to chuck this chore. « In that event. I recommend you clip this column and save it for historical value as a collectible. > When I started this

report in February of 1983. the insured money market savings account was new and my face was unlinked, my hair dark brown, my stature erect. I am now wrinkled, gray and bent. That has happened because of the frustrations I experience each midmonth calling local financial institutions with the simple question. "What interest rates are you paying on your money market savings accounts and your so-

called Super Nows?" Y 0 U W O I L D N * T BELIEVE the answers I get. or don't get. Last week, for example, one bank teller at a financial institution — I group banks and savings and loans <S&Ls) under that term — gave me four different rates before I finally gave up and called the home office. The problem is, financial institutions are offering so many sophisticated "instruments" that nobody can keep track of em all. Some tellers concede this by putting me on hold and never returning 1 appreciate their honesty, if not their tactic. ANOTHER PROBLEM is that the money market account has different names at different places: money market investment (First Fidelity South), investment (Security Savings & Loan), insured market plus 'Marine National) First Jersey National South at one time had a GMMA (Guarantee Money Market Account). LIA (Liquid Investment Account), and GIA (George Investment Account). Honest Some tellers will complain because they have to read signs "all the wajy across the room." Is it mv fault they need glasses and their bosses don't supply them with individual rale i cards? I One teller last week quoted a Super Now rate * higher than a moneymarket rate and then beat me to my comment by saying. "That doesn't make sense ." It didn't. THERE IS. in fact, an astounding number of tellers who do not know what accounts their firm has. nor what interest rales they pay There also is. of course, a large number of people who do know and who answer promptly and correctlyOne easy explanation — true until recently — was that financial institutions paid tellers minimum wages and failed to train them adequately But my financial institution sources tell me that there is a new ' demand" for tellers, more casinogenerated pressure for higher wages, and. as a result, the jobs are paying more. Some financial institutions also claim they . offer excellent benefit ' packages R But it is still conceded m. that a good waitress can

make more here in the summer, plus relax eight [ months a year on unemployment, than a bank teller earns in 12 • * months. i "Unemployment is a big I competition." a banker told me. The same person said it takes one to two years to train a teller. Consider. then, the problem of turnover. Sources told me that banks pay less than the S&Ls because the S&Ls expect tellers to do more. At a bank, a teller shoots tough questions to "the platform." At an S&L, the teller may have to supply the answer. I was told. WHEN ALL IS SAID and done, the money markets are remarkably unchanged over a month ago with the same half-dozen S&Ls paying the same highest 7 per cent interest, right what they've been at since last fall'. If there was one unusual fact noted from my survey, it is that one financial institution raised its rates since last month. Anchor Savings & Loan went from 6.65 percent on the moneymarket savings accounts to 6.8. Assistant Controller Maria Neklundoff said Anchor wants to "keep our depositors and attract some new ones." Since it's IRA (Individual Retirement Account) time. I included them in this month's survey I checked only relatively short-term rates <12 to 30 months) in the assumption no one wants to invest for longer than that at this time of low interest rates THE RANGE OF interest rates is considerable. and people planning to purchase IRAs should shop around The lowest 18-month IRA interest rate is Marine National Bank's 6.24 per percent The "yield" is 6 438 percent. I was told. The highest rate, for 18 months, is 9 25 at First Savings and Loan of Sea Isle City Right behind it is the 9 2 percent being paid for an 18-month IRA at Cape May County Savings & Loan. IK YOU CHECK on your own. beware the "yield" gimmick Some financial institutions quote the yield, which means the percent you'll get if you leave the money in for the duration of the investment. Others quote the actual interest rate. Even though the "yield"

is, of course, higher and sounds more attractive to the investor." First Savings & Loan insisted it did not want to quote yield because that was "deceptive." I have found such scrupulous concern for the investor's understanding to be quite rare. Here. then, is a list of the county's 15 financial institutions. in alphabetical order, with their moneymarket rate. Super Now rate, and 18-month fixed IRA rate, in that order And if I don't get at least two calls, this is the last time I'm doing this for you. Anchor Savings & Loan. 6.8, 6.2. 8.5. Cape May County Savings & Loan. 7. 6.5. 9.2. Collective Federal Savings & Loan. 6.9. 6.75. 8.65. Crest Savings & Loan. 7. 6. 9. First Fidelity Bank/South. 6.6. no Super Now. 7.85. First Jersey National Bank/South. GMMA. 6.6; GIA, 6.45: and on a 24-month IRA. 8.35. First National Bank of Toms River. 6.74. 5.99. 8.75. First Savings & Loan. 7. 6. 9.25. Heritage Bank. 6.6. 5.3. 7.5. Marine National Bank. 6.5. 5.6. 6.24. Midlantic Union Trust. 6.6. 5.3. 7.4. New Jersey National Bank. 6.32. 6.32, 8.5 on a 12-month IRA. Ocean City Home Savings & Loan. 7. 5.8, 8.5.

Security Savings Loan. 6.65, 6.5. 8. Sturdy Savings & Loan. 7. no Super Now. 8.65. CORRECTION WILDWOOD - An item in this paper last week reported that the responsibilities of Thomas M. Amenhauser, promoted to asssitant vice president of Midlantic National Bank/Union Trust, would include the Ocean City office. That should have read the Ocean office, which is located in Wildwood Crest.

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