News
Urban Partnership Bank is living up to their name by partnering with a broad coalition of organizations to develop the Southwest Corridor Collaborative, a local initiative to spur economic development in a historically disinvested community. This innovative public-private partnership is being greeted with much fanfare across the city of Chicago. As a local resident explains, "I think it's absolutely amazing anytime you have someone bringing money and subsequently jobs into a community. This is what's needed."
Building on the Bank Black movement that started this past summer, UAW-Ford made a record $1.5 Million deposit in First Independence Bank. This deposit is a concrete way for UAW-Ford to publically demonstrate their commitment to investing in the Detroit community and can be held up as a model for other CDFI banks nationwide who are lookign to cultivate local organizations as customers.
Carver Federal Bank's demonstrated their commitment to expanding opportunities for Minority and Women Business Entrepreneurs in New York City during their recent business networking celebration. Honorees included two small business entrepreneurs and Carver customers, Make My Cake and Settepani Restaurant, as well as long-time community economic development advocate, Congressman Charles B. Rangel.
Local community and economic development depends on a combination of public and private funding, however it can be difficult to ascertain the net impact that private dollars are truly having. To address this, the Federal Reserve of Atlanta's Community & Economic Development department created a new tool, Following the Money, which analyzes foundation giving in localities across the country. This article includes a podcast produced by the Atlanta Fed and written transcript of the interview.
Nichol Beckstrand, President of Sunrise Banks & Holding Company was recently named one of the Smartest People in Payments by PayBefore Magazine. Read more to learn about how embracing innovation and having a tolerance for failure has led to her and the bank's continuing success.
Michael Burris' forward-thinking mentality and focus on strong management, earned him the accolade of Small Bank CFO of the Year Finalist in the Arkansas Business of the Year Awards. Burris' successes include guiding FNBC Bank out of the recession and into their largest asset size yet - just north of $400 million.
The FDIC recently released its National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, the only major nationwide survey of financial inclusion and measures of the behaviors and attitudes of households likely to be excluded from the mainstream financial system. The biggest revelation was that unbanked households nationwide decreased from 7.7% in 2013 to 7.0% in 2015, which represents .5 million to 1 million new net households that have opened accounts in the past two years.
Since the most recent housing crisis, many loan modification programs were developed to protect financially struggling households from foreclosure. Based on several unique loan-level data sets, a newly released Federal Reserve study reports novel empirical evidence on how homeowners manage their credit before and after receiving modifications. This study demonstrates that interventions designed to improve household balance sheets could have a direct and sizable impact on borrower financial outcomes.
The First, A National Banking Association, has announced a merger with Gulf Coast Community Bank which will allow the banks to serve customers with 48 convenient locations in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. The combined company will have approximately $1.6 billion in total assets, $1.4 billion in total deposits, and $1.1 billion in total loans.