Yes, Virginia, Annual Report Season is Almost Here

November 2006

This time of year always brings to mind the old joke about how many shopping days left until Christmas. It’s funny right up until you run out of time to shop.

The same holds true for annual reports. They have a habit of sneaking up on bank executives who are busy with the demands of the holidays and year-end financial activities. CEOs and CFOs suddenly find themselves asking, "Didn’t we just mail out the ’05 report?"

Yes, it’s almost that time of year again. Actually, now is an opportune time to get a head start on annual report planning, before the holidays get into full swing. Doing so can save you a great deal of effort when the formal planning process begins in earnest in early 2007.

The best part about getting a head start is that it doesn’t have to be a long, time-consuming process. It can be as simple as jotting down a few ideas – descriptive words or phrases that define your bank and its mission, and illustrate how your bank has performed this year – that later can serve as key concepts or themes for the annual report.

Some examples could be:

•  Quality growth

•  Navigating rough waters

•  Resilient

•  Blocking and tackling

•  Year of the customer

•  Expanding our boundaries

Think both long- and short-term. Reflect on your long-term goals for the company, the reasons why the bank was founded in the first place, your fundamental approach to banking, etc. Place those thoughts in the context of how the bank progressed during the year toward meeting those goals.

Also consider more short-term descriptors of how your bank was affected by, and handled, current trends that have become hot topics among investors, analysts and the media in 2006. This includes such issues as increasing pressure on net interest margins, the competition for deposits and the rising costs of acquiring those deposits, and the effect of the slowing housing market on mortgage and loan operations.

Jotting down these descriptive words and phrases as you think of them will allow the ideas to evolve in your mind over the next month or two, so that when you do begin the formal annual report process, you will have a good idea of what you want to communicate to your key audiences in the report.

It’s never too early to get started. Remember, there are Only 30 Business Days Until Annual Report Season!