Large banks dug their own graves with mergers and takeovers, Dutch professor business-spirituality and jesuit Paul de Blot said today in Dutch newspaper het Financieele Dagblad.

During mergers and takeovers vital business components are often sacrificed, causing the enterprise to lose part of its soul, the professor claims. Executives should realize that the true capital of an enterprise are the people. Undermine their strength, and banks are doomed. “I liken it to losing an arm or a leg. Someone never really recovers from such a thing.”

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Banks can use the media to create a positive image of themselves. On the other hand, bad publicity can bring a bank to its knees.

The Dutch DSB bank is a recent example of dissatisfied customers and bad publicity threatening the survival of a bank. Yesterday, the DSB bank was put under the control of the Dutch central bank, the DNB.

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Could you substantially reduce the vulnerability of banks by tightening liquidity requirements? Would this minimize the risk of a new financial crisis?

The reason we ask is the recent announcement of the new liquidity requirements by the British Financial Services Authority.

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What to do with top bankers that are responsible for financial mismanagement? Make them punishable by law, with a maximum of six years in prison. Or make top executives personally responsible and force them to surrender their bonuses. Doing this would need a change of law.

This is the wish of Dutch left wing politician Ewout Irrgang.

His proposal to make them punishable by law, however, didn’t get much support in the Dutch house of representatives. A pity, says Irrgang, because it is currently near impossible to bring failing bankers to justice.

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The Whuffie Bank is launching the Whuffie, a new currency that rewards people for their positive contributions on the internet. Consider it an alternative currency, like the ones we discussed in our previous article.

Your Whuffie balance is calculated by tracking your online activity on websites like Twitter and Facebook and analyzing your contacts and feedback.

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In these days of economic turmoil, banks are hesitant to offer credit to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – even healthy businesses are denied. This is a problem and is hurting the economy, says the Dutch socialist party the SP.

What to do? Establish a National Investment Bank (NIB) that offers enterprises credit which is backed up by government guarantees.

Sharon Gesthuizen, member of the Dutch House of Representatives, posted a bill last saturday suggesting such a bank. According to her, the economy won’t be able to recover if the credit flow to small and medium enterprises isn’t restored.

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Luring in new customers with high interest rates on savings accounts or by offering freebies is a well known and often used strategy for banks. It seems to make sense, but does it really? Perhaps banks would be better off rewarding their existing customers for staying loyal in these difficult times.

Take for instance the special offer from Credit Europe, a small Dutch bank that provides online savings accounts. Credit Europe, for a short period at the beginning of this year, offered higher interest rates to existing customers than it did for new customers.

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People’s desire for personal interaction with a bank clerk still proves to be strong. Financial advisors offering advice that is specific to the customer’s situation will help re-establish the faith people have in banks.

These are the conclusions of a survey performed by Deloitte, the globally operating service provider for accountants, tax advisors, consultants and financial planners.

According to Deloitte, an improvement in cross selling – an important source of profit in a satiated market – will lead to an improvement in trust.

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A new service makes it possible for bank customers to deposit checks immediately through their mobile phones. How it works? Simple. Using a special application they can take a picture of both sides of the check with the phone’s camera and electronically deposit it to their account.

USSA – an American privately held bank and insurance company – presents this new service called USAA Deposit@Mobile which is available for the iPhone only.

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How can governments avoid the forced nationalization of suffering banks and, more importantly, the hefty claims made by investors that come with them?

One option is to put the banks under compulsory state administration instead. This way, no structural changes are made in the bank’s ownership and the government has less trouble pulling out when the situation improves. The German parliament is working to implement such a plan right now.

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