Bait and Switch?
The commissioner of Tennessee's Department of Financial Institutions is putting a new spin on his boss's predilection for recruiting companies to Tennessee: He's seeking to convince 31 nationally-charted banks already located in Tennessee to convert to state charters. Why? Revenue. The Knoxville News Sentinel has the story:

The state - still trying to douse its financial crisis with new sources of revenue - is calling on national banks to convert to Tennessee charters, which could generate millions of dollars annually in fees and assessments. The department of financial institutions is contacting the 31 nationally chartered banks headquartered in Tennessee to persuade them that Nashville regulatory oversight is preferable to Washington, D.C.'s, according to Kevin Lavender, commissioner of Tennessee's department of financial institutions.

Lavender says trying to recruit banks to switch to state charters is a new approach for his department. Banking industry officials say few banks are likely to switch. But Lavender has a selling point: He's telling the federally-chartered banks that Tennessee banking regulators are not "heavy handed" like those pesky federal banking regulators at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates and supervises national banks.

Tennessee to Banks: We're Lax!

One side comment on the story: the writer, Bill Brewer, apparently doesn't know the state's financial crisis is over. That may be because the Knoxville paper has not yet reported that Tennessee achieved a revenue surplus in the just-ended 2002-03 fiscal year.