Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS), Wells Fargo & Co (WFC): Two Words That Every Investor Needs to Hear

Harvey Schwartz (CFO, Goldman Sachs): “And this is all about, again, staying extremely focused on our clients. Particularly in our Investment Banking franchise, where we’re working with CFOs and CEOs, and how they think about their balance sheets, or how they think strategically about merger activity. But again, the core message here is we’re less focused on the quarter activity and much more just focused on the client long term.”

Jamie Dimon (CEO, JPMorgan): “[You] have to be very cognizant of client effects. We have a client business, and we have to make sure that we continue to have a client franchise. And so over time, we’ll adjust the businesses, and we’ll meet [liquidity coverage ratio], we’ll meet Basel III, we’re going to meet whatever the leverage ratio is. And think of it in some ways of alternative minimum taxes. So if every client will be running what’s your return on Basel III capital and then what’s your return on leverage capital?”

John Stumpf (CEO, Wells Fargo): “We are absolutely focused around here on growth, and it comes from our basic operating philosophy around helping customers succeed financially.”

More than talk

As we all know, the cliche doesn’t end with “talk the talk” — you also have to “walk the walk.” So the fact that bank executives are talking a lot about customers (and clients) isn’t the end of the story. But if we, as investors, want to see banks succeeding by meeting their customers’ needs (we do), then hearing the banks at least talking about customers is a step in the right direction.

The article 2 Words That Every Investor Needs to Hear originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Matt Koppenheffer.

Matt Koppenheffer owns shares of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and PNC Financial Services (NYSE:PNC). The Motley Fool recommends Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool owns shares of Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Financial Services, and Wells Fargo.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.