Tiny Bank Seeks an Edge by Opening on Sundays : <i> “And on the seventh day God ended his work .</i> . <i> .”</i> --The Book of Genesis

God might have rested on the seventh day, but Jack D. Seefus thinks Sundays are no time for relaxation in the banking business.

Seefus is president of Antelope Valley Bank, a small, Lancaster-based community bank. Beginning Nov. 5, he plans to open the bank’s six offices for four hours each Sunday. The bank already has been open Saturdays, and each weekday of course, since its founding in 1981.

Moreover, for the past few years Seefus has operated branch offices in two Antelope Valley supermarkets (in Mojave and Rosamond), and plans to add more such outlets. Some of Seefus’ four other branches--two in Lancaster and one each in Palmdale and Acton--are furnished with oak antiques and fireplaces to make them more inviting.

He’s also toying with the idea of placing big-screen televisions near his tellers to distract customers from their wait in line.

Why? Anything to make the bank stand apart from its competition.

“The world of banking today revolves around marketing,” said Seefus, who claims that his bank, despite having a relatively small $120 million in assets, is still the biggest in the area.

Changing Demographics

Seefus, 54, said his bank will be open Sundays because of the changing demographics of the Lancaster-Palmdale area, where thousands have moved in recent years mainly because of the region’s inexpensive real estate.

He estimates that 25% of the area’s residents now commute 50 miles or more to work in the San Fernando Valley or other parts of Los Angeles, leaving them no time before or after work to go to the bank.

“The demographics have changed to the point of where we’re a bedroom community,” he said. “Saturday is now the biggest day we have.”

Sunday is a popular grocery-store day, Seefus said, and “we want to be where the customers are.”

But John Stocksdale, manager of First Interstate’s Palmdale branch, dismissed Seefus’ plan to open Sundays as unnecessary and costly. “We feel it’s going to be just a very expensive proposition for them, with them picking up limited additional revenues,” Stocksdale said. “They have to do it to try to compete with us majors. We have no immediate plans to do anything like that.”

A bank open on Sunday was once unthinkable, but selling bank services these days is little different than peddling soap or toothpaste. The deregulation of the financial industry--which now enables banks, savings and loans and other financial entities to offer similar services at similar prices--has forced banks to keep finding new marketing gimmicks that will attract customers’ deposits.

Bank Giveaways

Banks and S&Ls; have long given away toasters or offered no-fee checking accounts, particularly to big depositors or new customers. But lately even big banks have tried to persuade the public that they’re concerned about service to all comers.

Last month, for instance, Wells Fargo Bank guaranteed a $5 payment to customers each time they had to wait longer than five minutes in line. First Interstate Bank of California ($21 billion-plus in assets) shot back by extending the $5 guarantee to each time the bank makes errors in their statements or their automatic-teller-machine (ATM) transactions are fouled up.

Seefus wasn’t the first to think about doing banking business on Sundays. Some banks in Georgia already are open Sundays, and Fremont Bank, a community bank based in Fremont north of San Jose, also plans to start Sunday hours next month. The Sunday hours will apply only at eight new branches that Fremont plans to open in supermarkets over the next year, said Robert David, the bank’s marketing director.

For little banks such as Antelope Valley or Fremont, which has $220 million in assets, service is everything. They constantly try to attract business by showing that, unlike the local branch of a huge, bureaucracy-laden big bank, they respond better to customers’ needs. The big banks, of course, dispute that the community banks have any advantage.

Still, Antelope Valley and Fremont argue that putting branches in supermarkets is a low-cost way of generating revenue. Using only two or three employees per outlet, both banks use the supermarket branches to make loans as well as take deposits and cash checks.

“It’s low overhead and a lot of volume,” said Seefus, whose bank employs 170 people.

Seefus knows banking both big and small. An Omaha, Neb., native, he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 to work for Citizens National Bank, which later became Crocker Bank, which has since been merged into Wells Fargo.

Opened Branch

In 1966, Seefus opened Crocker’s branch office in Lancaster, but in 1981 he joined with several other local business people to start Antelope Valley Bank. Ironically, his office is in a building that formerly was a Wells Fargo branch. Seefus owns less than 5% of Antelope Valley’s stock, which is not publicly traded.

After earning $756,000 in 1985, Antelope Valley’s profits dropped to $459,000 and $519,000 in 1986 and 1987, respectively. Seefus blamed the skid on a costly conversion to a new computer system and some problem loans to small businesses. But last year, the bank’s earnings climbed back up to $916,000, which gave it a strong return on average assets of 0.92%. The return measures how profitably a bank manages the assets at its disposal.

Regardless, it is questionable how long a small bank such as Antelope Valley can remain independent. In 1991, non-California banks will be allowed to purchase banks in the state, and in all other areas of the country where interstate banking has been allowed, there has been a wave of consolidation. The same figures to be true in California as banks from the East use mergers to expand in California.

A Possibility

“Informally, we’re looking at that as a possibility” for Antelope Valley, Seefus said. “But we’re not hoping it happens. If it happened, I would probably turn around and start another independent community bank.”

In the meantime, Seefus will be trying to drum up business on Sundays. Will the major banks follow him? Larry Kurmel, executive director of the California Bankers Assn., an industry trade group, doubts it.

“I don’t think there’s evidence of a trend there, or even demand” by customers for Sunday hours industrywide, Kurmel said.

But in the Antelope Valley, at least, Seefus predicted that the banks eventually will follow his lead. Noting that Antelope Valley Bank began Saturday hours several years before the big banks latched onto the idea last spring, he said, “Just give them six years.”