Journalism instructors traditionally tell their students that writing a good

news story requires asking and answering five basic questions: Who?

What? When? Where? Why? Without the answers to these questions,

there is no real story. The same five questions apply to the writing of a

good textbook on banking.

Who are the people involved in commercial banking? There are

about one million of them, in every part of the country. The teller at a

bank in Arizona, the loan clerk in Washington, the administrative

assistant in Florida, the auditor in Maine, and the securities clerk in

Michigan are all part of an industry that is essential to the American

economy, and the principles that guide their daily work are common to all

of them.

What do these people do? In their individual ways, they render

services: a wide range of financial services to a wide variety of customers,

and the end result is the growth and profitability of the banks they

represent.