The condo owner, moreover, can deduct property taxes, and gets a partial exemption from capital gain taxes when he moves, notes James Banahan, a credit analyst with National Cooperative Bank in New York.

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The Cooperative bank recently launched Smile.

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The trouble is that now around 75.0% of the retail market is dominated by cooperative and savings bank networks, leaving just a quarter of the market for all the private banks and limited growth opportunities, according to Sassus.

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