Customer Reviews

Bank Management

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Professor Koch's book is excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in banking. The book is great to read if you don't know much about the industry or if you are an expert. I studied with Professor Koch at USC at the undergrad level and decided to go into banking thanks to his class and book. The book covers liquidity management, credit management, capital management, asset and liability management (focus on interest rate risk management), balance sheet analysis and other interestig topics. I've worked in several areas of commercial banks in Ecuador, namely credit, treasury, asset and liability management and finance. The book has always come in handy. I've also used it to teach at the University level down here.
It is especially interesting how every chapter is related in some way to the ALCO (Asset and Liability Management Commitee).
The cases are also very interesting. In Ecuador we recently had a liquidity crunch in the banking system. I was very much surprised to find an anylisis of a case very similar to what was happening down here in the book. The case was on the Contintental Illinois bank failure.
In other words, I think this book is a must for anyone interested in the industry.

This is an update of a prior review I wrote of this book, I changed my mind. I hadn't read the entire book but had been impressed with what I had read. The book does cover many aspects of commercial banking including regulations, capital and liquidity management, things of most interst to me as an analyst. However, a significant problem is that many of the examples used appear to be incorrect. For instance, the text often does not match the accompanying exhibits or tables. Perhaps the book was not edited well during an update to a new edition, and either the text or the exhibit/table was updated but not both (ie, in numerous cases they disagree). Whatever the reason, the numerous typographical errors made the book difficult to read, especially in a "self-study" situation. I'm looking elsewhere for a better guide.

I've been in banking education for almost 18 years and a vast library of texts have crossed my desk. This fourth edition of Bank Management is vastly superior to anything I've seen to date. Will become an industry standard or should. Comprehensive, but not tedious. Well researched. Information rich. Authors Koch and MacDonald--who obviously are at the top of their game--have made it understandable to expert and novice alike. I found the "Contemporary Issues" sidebars in each chapter especially fascinating and instructive. This is one book that will be feathered with post-it notes--to mark the pages that you want to return to time and again.

I am in my last year of school and preparing to embark on a career in banking. Out of all the finance and economics (I'm a double major) textbooks I have used this is the absolute worst bar none. While the text has a very large amount of information that same information is simply thrown at you with no real presentation.

One other thing that bothers me (possible the most) is the fact that I get severe headaches when I read this text. I have never read a book before with text this small. To me this says something since I am a voracious reader and frequently am reading 3-4 novels while also studying for my classes.

I have been using this textbook for almost a full semester now for an online class in bank management. The book starts off ok (if a bit dry), but the errors and poor editing become worse as the book progresses. This edition contains many typos, and several of the end of chapter questions seem to refer to topics covered in later chapters. Maybe the topics were in a different order in earlier additions and the questions were not revised. In any event, if your class requires this book, either don't take it online or pick a different class. If you do decide to take an online class using this book, google is your friend.

I am an investment adviser seeking comprehensive texts on various industries. I am only on Chapter 3 but so far this book is a great read. I am learning a lot about banking regulation and how to analyze banks. If anyone has any suggestions for similar authoritative books covering such industries as insurance, real estate, or banking, please write to me at erichplace@yahoo.com

This book gives plenty of infomatoin by presenting not interesting monotonous explanations. The layout is far from reader-friendly. It needs to improve its layout like increasing spaces of the lines, and so forth. This book might discourages students, who want to study this subject. Be super patient and tolerant, if you read the book.

The reviews stating that this book is dry and monotonous are right on target. There are numerous errors in the book and the teacher's guide with regard to referencing the Exhibits in the text, which is really unacceptable for a 6th edition. The examples are overly complicated and I find myself connstantly searching for outside articles and examples that are more interesting and straightforward.

The text font is very small and the detail and complexity can be overwhelming for an introductory banking course.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of bank management texts out there, but I will continue to look for a better alternative.

Never used it for class, and this book is dryer than aunt peggy's thanksgiving turkey.

This is likely the worst textbook I have come accross in my finance career. The writing is extremely dry and the authors do not make an effort to summarize anything. They love narrating long concepts and mixing it with dull examples that make you completely lost. The concepts in each chapter are repeated twice for absolutely no reason. This sucker will make you fall asleep as fast as NyQuill - without the good relaxing feeling.