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The overall mood of account managers at Canada’s banks and credit unions may not have improved much in 2003, but some bankers are clearly happier than others.

For Investment Executive‘s 2003 Account Managers’ Report Card, researchers Kate Betts-Wilmott, Maureen Halushak and Lisa Weaver interviewed 244 account managers at Canada’s seven largest banks and at individual credit unions across the country during May and June.

In telephone interviews, an average of 30 respondents from each bank, chosen at random from IE‘s mailing list, were asked to rate their company’s performance in 20 categories. We also spoke to 30 account managers at credit unions across the country. Although we did not rate specific credit unions — often credit unions are small, although that, too, is changing — we did ask the advisors to comment on a range of issues, from the firm’s technology to corporate culture and strategic focus to get a general feel for differences in culture between the credit union and bank environment.

We then averaged the individual ratings in each category and produced each firm’s overall score for that question. To create the IE rating, we averaged each firm’s scores for each category. We awarded extra marks for the number of times a firm took the top spot in a category. The IE rating determines a firm’s ranking from highest to lowest. — Alan Husdal