OneUnited Bank has announced plans to move its national headquarters from its current office in Boston's Financial District to a new larger location in Roxbury or Dorchester. Although just 7 percent of OneUnited Bank's $356 million in deposits are held in Massachusetts, the expansion signals the bank's growing emphasis on its Boston-based online and mobile banking team. OneUnited Bank President Teri Williams said an expanded headquarters in Boston fits OneUnited’s stated mission to help underserved banking customers. “It represents the right kind of challenge for an institution like us,” she said. “It is the No. 1 city for income inequality as a country. Given our mission, our view is that Boston needs us. And we need Boston to figure out how [we] can solve this problem.”

Virginia Community Capital has acquired benefit-corporation status, enabling the bank to write a social mission into its corporate charter. While B-Corporations are still required to pursue profitability, their management and directors must also weigh societal benefits along with shareholder value in evaluating performance. B Lab, the main advocates of the movement, also offer their own certification to corporations independent of state status. Currently, B Lab has certified just four banks: Virginia Community Capital, Sunrise Banks in St. Paul, Minn., Beneficial State Bank in Oakland, Calif., and New Resource Bank in San Francisco. "It's a way for companies to distinguish themselves and demonstrate that they have a mission as well as a margin," said Jeannine Jacokes, CDBA chief executive. 

Elkins Park, Penn.-based NOAH Bank has sued Duluth, Ga.-based NOA Bank alleging trademark infringement, false designation of origin and description and unfair competition. NOAH Bank representatives said the suit stems from NOA Bank’s recent hiring of a former NOAH officer and the opening by NOA Bank of a loan production office in New York in March 2016. NOAH alleges NOA has intentionally engaged in a scheme to confuse customers and prospects of NOAH in an effort to steal business. In particular, NOAH claims NOA targeted the Korean-American community it serves by adopting infringing trademarks and using NOAH’s confidential and trade secret information, which it got from NOAH’s former executive vice president and senior lender.

NCIF’s annual CDFI banking industry report shows the performance of the CDFI banking sector is continuing to improve. As a group, CDFI banks surpass the average U.S. bank in several performance metrics, such as net interest margin — with CDFI banks at 3.93 percent compared to the median of all U.S. banks at 3.58 percent. CDFI banks’ assets, deposits and capital base also showed steady improvement. CDFI banks also performed strongly in NCIF’s social performance metrics, Development Deposit Intensity (DDI), which measures the concentration of a bank’s branches in low- and moderate-income areas, and Development Lending Intensity (DLI), which measures banks’ home lending concentrations in distressed areas. The median CDFI bank has a DDI score of 83 percent, compared to 40 percent for the median U.S. bank. The median CDFI bank has a DLI score of 56 percent, compared to 27 percent for the median U.S. bank.