Article Guidelines for Banking Exchange

Working with Banking Exchange

By our very name, Banking Exchange, we believe in an exchange of news, research, ideas, solutions, and more among all actors in financial services.

We strongly encourage you to review our website, www.bankingexchange.com. Look at the kinds of articles we present and the ways we present them, and the topics we cover. 

We are always open to new things. But there should be an obvious connection to banking and finance.

General contact

Send proposals for office visits, get-acquainted calls, and source connections to:

• Erik Vander Kolk, Publisher, [email protected]

We prefer to be cold-contacted by email, not by telephone.

We work closely with a small group of outside editors and bloggers and may refer your proposal to one of those colleagues. They are a key part of our team.

Editorial calendar queries

For a copy of our editorial calendar, please contact Erik Vander Kolk, Publisher, at [email protected]. If you have a client or you yourself have expertise, please email us. Please do not inquire regarding the direction of the stories on the editorial calendar. We do not have time for such inquiries. Make the case in a succinct email. If we can use your help, we will contact you.

Submitting original articles—digital or print

At Banking Exchange we welcome submissions from qualified authors including bankers and bank directors; compliance, legal, marketing, and technology experts; and representatives of regulatory agencies and trade associations. Overall, remember that our audience consists of working bankers; write to a level useful to them.

Your time and our time is finite. Please always begin the process with a summary of about 75 words concerning the main point of the article and the author’s qualifications.

Do not begin by sending completed manuscripts, full white papers, or photographs unless requested.

Allow at least a week before following up, preferably by email. We are a small and active staff and cannot always act or respond immediately.

DOs and DON’Ts for working with Banking Exchange

DO

• Submit articles as Word .doc files ONLY. Set up your document in 12 point serif type, such as Times Roman or Cambria.

• Keep your formatting simple. Complex indents, extra spacing, varying line space settings, etc., must all be undone before we can work with your text. Don’t use them.

• Provide charts and graphics in web-ready form. If you have relevant charts, they must be provided in a format and resolution that will appear satisfactorily on a web page. Don’t simply send embedded graphics in a Word document. Always also send separate graphic files, preferably JPEGs, so we can fix any typos. Do include separate files for each graphic with your final submission, rather than relying solely on anything embedded in your Word document—embedded graphics are too blurry.

• Follow a few grammatical and style points. Keep sentences on the short side. Aim for short paragraphs. Write in the active voice. Avoid footnotes. Use the serial comma. Do not use Mr., Mrs., Miss., or Ms. with people’s names.

• Provide relevant Links. If you mention a study or regulation, please provide the full title in the first reference and then link to it. 

DON’Ts

• Do not promote your company or product. Submissions that are “commercials” will be rejected.

• Don’t submit links that go to commercial content on your site.

• Don’t send an article that’s been making the rounds for two months without being sure it is up-to-date when sent to us.

• Don’t submit links without verifying the URL.

• Don’t dual-submit articles. We expect outside submissions to be original to us and exclusive to us —in the banking field—if we accept them.

• Don’t go off the radar. Keep in touch as an article is progressing. Let us know if it will be late. Be sure we know that all internal reviews have been completed before sending a “completed” manuscript.

• Don’t send any large attachments (4 MB or larger) without advance word.

Websites are subject to constant change. We cannot be responsible for broken links.

Books for review

Books are part of how bankers exchange information and we have a small but dedicated group of banker book reviewers. If you would like your book considered for review, please contact:

• Erik Vander Kolk, Executive Editor & Digital Content Manager, [email protected]

Unsolicited books may be considered for review, but we are under no obligation to examine them.