News
Black and Latino interns and professionals from across Chicago’s financial industry attended the third annual Summer Intern Career Conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago organized by the Financial Services Pipeline Initiative. The initiative was co-founded by Urban Partnership Bank to increase the representation of Latinos and African Americans at all levels of Chicago’s financial industry. African-Americans and Latinos make up 38% of the Chicago area population but are only employed in 22% of jobs in Chicago’s financial services industry. Only 5% of executives and senior-level managers are African-American or Latino. The initiative now includes eighteen Chicago-area financial institutions.
Southern Bancorp’s 2015 annual report describes the institution's growing impact. In 2015, Southern provided 2,726 individuals and families with financing for affordable housing and homeownership. It also supported 4,419 jobs through commercial, small business and microloans – over 75% of which were made in low to moderate income census tracts. Roger Perry was one entrepreneur who thrived with help from Southern. Roger built his auto detail business one car and one client at a time. It was that tenacity that attracted the attention of Southern Bancorp to provide the financial and technical assistance access needed for him to build a facility in which he and his employees could wash cars year round. Today, RP Detail is a thriving testament to the spirit of entrepreneurship.
Beneficial State Bank has completed its merger with Pan American Bank and is celebrating with a Toyota Prius giveaway. The merger will increase the size of Beneficial State to approximately $650 million in assets, allowing it to better meet the needs of underserved communities in the Central Valley and Los Angeles with financial products and services. “We are embarking on an exciting moment in our journey,” said Dan Skaff, Beneficial State Co-CEO and president. "We are bringing together extraordinary talent and partnering with innovative companies that provide forward-looking technology to deliver beneficial banking products and services to all families throughout California, Oregon and Washington."
Teri Williams, President of OneUnited Bank discussed the financial system's structural racism in a recent interview. “If you look at what has happened in the banking industry or financial services industry over the past 10 years, the black community was faced with predatory lending, we currently have payday lenders that charge rates as high as 400% on a short term loan, they charge fees to cash checks of 1% or more, and the legal framework, the regulatory framework allows this to exist… Black people spend $1.2 trillion annually. That is more than some whole countries spend. But only 2% of that is spent in the black community, so the opportunity for us to use that spending to build wealth in our community is very small.”
In an interview, Virginia Community Capital Community Programs Manager Leah Fremouw spoke about the benefits of the bank's status as a Certified B Corps. "[The B Corps designation] allowed us to elevate our social mission to the same significance as our shareholder value. 50% of our Board help develop social and environmental standards for industry, we give preference to local and sustainable suppliers, and our staff are given opportunities to have paid time off for community service. In late June we held an event in Old Town Petersburg, at Trapezium Brewery (a renovation project we recently funded) – one of several celebrations we’ve held over the past few months with our partners and supporters to commemorate our achievements together. The Tri-Cities region has received a total of 220 loans during the past decade."
Black-owned banks across the country, including Savannah, Georgia-based Carver State Bank, are seeing an increase in applicants after recent protests against police brutality. "We've seen a tremendous increase in the number of inquiries about the bank and the number of accounts that have been opened," said Carver State Bank President Robert James. "In fact, on Monday and Tuesday of last week we probably opened as many accounts as we would probably open in a full month in two days... Most citizens can't take to the streets and demonstrate but they've found that one of the things they can do is to try to not feel so powerless about the spending of their money and the deposit of their money in banks.”
Kat Taylor, Co-CEO of Oakland, Calif.-based Beneficial State Bank, was interviewed for the cover story of Conscious Company Magazine: “[Capital] has been deployed [in harmful ways] because it got anonymized. As soon as the banking system got big enough and the deposits all went into this big black box, then the bankers on the other side felt entitled to lend it to anything that would maximize return... I believe we can take the banking system back and make it govern in the public interest... We wouldn’t want depositors saying, ‘Lend to this company,’ or, ‘Lend to that nonprofit,’ but they should be able to look at our quarterly and annual track records and say, ‘Yep, I’m comfortable with that lending practice, so I’m staying here,’ or, ‘Nope! I don’t want any part of that, so I’m getting out.’”
Community development information service Aeris has released a set of metrics intended as a starting point for CDFIs and other community investment institutions to collect and reporting standardized impact data. The toolkit evolved based on principles discussed at a series of meetings organized by Aeris, Partners for the Common Good and other organizations in the field. It is intended to advance a set of standardized metrics that would allow CDFIs to better understand their impact performance relative to peer institutions. The metrics allow both investors and investees to measure the aggregated impact of an investment portfolio over time and in the future, supporting comparative analysis of community development investments.
Deposits are up dramatically at black-owned banks across the country as a result of the Black Money Matters Project. The project started when a group of recording artists including Killer Mike and Usher urged their social media followers to support black-owned businesses in the wake of high-profile shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castileon by opening accounts at black-owned banks and credit unions. Boston-based OneUnited has brought in $3 million in deposits. Carver Federal Savings Bank in New York City has collected about $2.4 million in new deposits. And at Washington, D.C.-based Industrial Bank, CEO Doyle Mitchell writes that, "account opening volume has increased exponentially."
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta board of directors has elected Brian Argrett as its new District of Columbia member director. Mr. Argrett has served as president, chief executive officer, and director of City First Bank of D.C. since 2011. He also serves as chairman of the boards of directors for City First Enterprises and City First Foundation. Mr. Argrett currently serves as presidential appointee to the Community Development Advisory Board, chairman of the CDBA and director of the Washington D.C. Economic Partnership. “FHLBank Atlanta has been a reliable source of liquidity and risk management products for its members,” Mr. Argrett said. “I look forward to helping the bank meet its business objectives while representing the interests of the District of Columbia members.”