NorthWestern Financial Review is finishing its transformation to BankBeat.
The Minneapolis-based magazine, which has its roots in publications that date back to the late 19th century, changed the name of its website to BankBeat.biz earlier this year. Starting with its September issue, the print product will also be called BankBeat.
The publication, owned by NFR Communications Inc., first used the moniker when it launched a Twitter feed in 2010 with the handle @BankBeat.
"The name change signals the magazine's renewed commitment to people who work in banking," Jacqueline Nasseff Hilgert, its editor-in-chief, said in a statement. "When something is alive, it has a beat, and we believe banking is very much alive."
The magazine formed in 1988 from the merger of Northwestern Banker, which started in 1894, and Commercial West, which started in 1901. In the announcement of the change, Tom Bengtson, BankBeat's publisher, said the old name reflected that long heritage. "Today, we are looking ahead," he added.
The company is also the publisher of CFPBJournal.com, a website that covers the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That agency has also recently gone through a name change.
