¡Yes, but i'd also like to win more with my Lakers!
So lots of NBA stars have their own sneaker line; how many have their own bank-created interest rate plan?
Even before public dissatisfaction in banks peaked (?) to its all-time high, Spain-based Banco Popular Español came up with a clever idea to boost its overall liability: Creation of a deposit plan which would provide customers who switched their savings accounts from a rival bank to Popular would receive up to 3.75% interest on the Popular accounts.
Coupled with a snazzy advertising campaign starring Pau Gasol, Popular has become one of Spain’s top savings banks and was able to exploit the current Spanish basketball mania to the tune of a 21% increase in deposits in first quarter 2009.
See after the break for video of Gasol’s very first day in Los Angeles – a Los Angeles apparently populated by hitchhiker-loving drivers (yeah, surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre) and Spanish nationals.
Now deploying Gasol in further PR and seeing ever greater numbers take advantage of the deposit plan, Banco Popular is showing a bit of a financial swoon these days, most recently dipping 9.2% in first quarter 2010 after suffering a generally down year in 2009. However, bank chief financial officer Jacobo Gonzalez-Robatto reassured the Wall Street Journal that Popular “plans to continue with the Gasol deposits plan and that the high rates offered aren’t affecting costs much.”
Good thing, too, because Popular just extended Gasol longer than the Lakers have, with a contract through 2013.
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