By Jeff McKinney
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Despite what you might think, those credit card solicitations that you get in your mailbox are declining.

Volume for credit card mail dropped for the fourth straight quarter, falling about 20 percent from a year ago, says Cardweb.com, which tracks the electronic-payment industry.

The latest number also shows a 25 percent drop in May mail from April mail, and June mail volume slipped 4.5 percent from May.

Cardweb said research by Mintel's Comperemedia and Synovate's Mail Monitor showed a drop in mail volume by many major credit card issuers, including Citibank, Bank One, Chase and American Express. But research showed that direct-mail volume from Capital One and MBNA remained about the same during the second quarter.

The latest data also showed that card issuers are becoming more likely to offer only introductory rates on balance transfers. Card issuers also continue to offer reward programs to attract business.

Banks push to attract minority customers

Hoping to better reach a growing ethnic customer base, U.S. banks plan to spend more next year to reach those consumers.

The trend includes the Tristate, where such banking companies as Fifth Third ave stepped up efforts to serve more ethnic groups, particularly Hispanic residents.

On average, banks plan to boost their marketing budgets by 7 percent in 2004, compared with this year, based on the latest marketing survey by the American Bankers Association, the industry's largest trade group.

"Banks that are planning to target different ethnic groups will likely increase spending for advertising and marketing research," says Brenda Marlin, the ABA Marketing Network's associate director.

PNC Group out from under Fed scrutiny

The Federal Reserve has ended 14 months of tighter supervision over the parent of PNC Bank.

The Fed has lifted its order to scrutinize PNC Financial Services Group Inc., implementing several actions to change its operations.

PNC entered into the agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland in July 2002. It was part of a settlement that the bank arranged with the Fed and Securities and Exchange Commission on how it accounted for units it created with American International Group Inc. to remove bad loans from the bank's books.

The bank was required to make changes in top management, increase the independence of its board and correct problems with its internal operations following the agreement with federal regulators.

PNC operates 47 branches in Greater Cincinnati.

Bloomberg News contributed. E-mail jmckinney@enquirer.com