We re a little different than most banks in that our customer focus is more the middle class down. We also have the 16th largest number of debit cards, even though we re the 48th largest bank. And myself, I ve been with TCF since 1985. I am a commercial banker by background. We compete for that middle class down retail customer largely through convenience.
Most families now have both spouses working and time is a much bigger issue.
So, our major competitive thrust has been a geographic expansion of the branch system and an expansion of those other avenues that people use to do their banking. I believe that we re probably America s most convenient bank. The huge de novo expansion that we ve done over the last years. It takes two or three years for a branch to break even on a profit basis. We ve got a large number of branches that have crossed that break-even point and are now moving into profitability.