News
RiverHills Bank and FHLB Dallas has extended a HAVEN grant to Steve Williams, an Iraq War veteran who served with the U.S. Navy. HAVEN is a unique grant program that targets income-qualified veterans and active duty service members who have been disabled in the line of duty since September 11, 2001. It provides grants up to $7,500 to support necessary home modifications. Mr. Williams injured his back during his Iraq deployment while placing concrete T-walls — large concrete slabs used as protection around the perimeter of buildings. "We're so excited to have been involved in helping Mr. Williams get his house repaired," said RiverHills Bank President and COO Joel Horton. "He's done so much for our country and we're just glad to be involved in helping in some small way."
Financial institutions face increased risk of cyber attacks that involve extortion, the FFIEC has warned. During an extortion attack, cyber criminals use a variety of tactics including ransomware, denial of service (DoS) and theft of sensitive information to extort payment or other concessions from victims. Often, an extortion attack encrypts the data on the target machine, making data inaccessible. The victim is then prompted to make a payment in order to release or unlock the files. In some cases, these attacks have caused significant impacts on businesses’ access to data and ability to provide services. Other businesses have incurred serious damage through the release of sensitive information. Financial institutions can learn how to protect themselves from cyber attacks here.
Beneficial State Bancorp's new office building, Framework, has received a $1.5 million award from the U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize Competition, sponsored by the USDA Softwood Lumber Board and the Binational Softwood Lumber Council. The building, anticipated to be one of the first tall timber structures in the United States, is designed to promote sustainable urban ecology by promoting social justice, sustainable building and economic opportunity. The designers hope the building will pave the way for more wooden high-rises, creating demand for Oregon’s local lumber harvest, milling and pre-fabrication industries. The building will include office space for Beneficial State Bank and Albina Community Bank, an Albina Community Bank branch and socially motivated retail businesses at street level.
Bank consolidation may have the strongest yearly showing in 2015 since the financial crisis. The banking industry agreed to 34 deals in October collectively valued at $8.2 billion, marking the best single month for M&A this year. Those deals boasted an average premium of 152% of tangible book value. While M&A has largely been dominated by small banks in recent years, some large institutions may begin looking into M&A. Since January 2014, banks have agreed to 11 deals valued at more than $500 million. The heightened activity comes as many bankers revisit the notion of building scale, particularly at institutions that are around $50 billion in assets. That threshold triggers more regulatory scrutiny, which would add more challenges to an existing low interest rate environment.
By inserting individual arbitration clauses into a soaring number of consumer and employment contracts, corporations are increasingly circumventing the courts and barring people from joining together in class-action lawsuits. Over the last few years, it has become increasingly difficult to apply for a credit card, use a cellphone, get cable or Internet service, or access an array of services without agreeing to private arbitration. More than a decade in the making, the move to block class actions was engineered by a coalition of credit card companies and retailers who said that class actions were not needed because arbitration enabled individuals to resolve their grievances. But court and arbitration records show that once blocked from going to court as a group, most people dropped their claims entirely.
Ridgeland, Miss.-based BankPlus is the winner of the American Bankers Association Community Commitment Award in the Nontraditional Borrower and Underbanked category. BankPlus was honored for turning people who thought a bank loan or checking account was beyond their reach into customers. Their CreditPlus product provides borrowers a small-dollar, short-term loan designed as an alternative to payday loans. Since launching CreditPlus in 2008, BankPlus has signed up 22,223 unbanked or underbanked Mississippians who attended one of 642 money-management sessions. "What’s great about this is that they are showing results in what they are doing,” said Corey Carlisle, the ABA’s senior vice president for bank community engagement.
Construction financing from Virginia Community Capital will facilitate the renovation of a historic department store building in Petersburg, Va. into a mixed use building featuring artist studios, gallery space, mixed-income housing and commercial storefronts. The Butterworth Flats will include 45 mixed-income apartments, a majority serving incomes of less than 80 percent of area median income and a commercial storefront. “VCC was delighted to help this important downtown Petersburg project come to life,” said VCC Senior Loan Officer, Dawn DeHart. “The downtown area should benefit from the affordable housing units, as well as the cultural aspects of the art studios and galleries.”
CDBA member Beneficial State Bank, based in Oakland, Calif., was named the winner of this year’s Promontory Empowerment Awards in the CDFI Banking category. The Empowerment Awards recognize innovative programs that provide or encourage safe, fair financial services in underserved communities. All of the finalists in the CDFI banking category were CDBA members, including BankPlus, Carver Federal Savings Bank and Southern Bancorp. The Empowerment Awards are sponsored by Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Promontory Financial Group. “These projects help underserved communities across the country by making innovative, responsible banking products available and accessible,” said Promontory founder and CEO Gene Ludwig.
The CDFI Fund has opened the 2015 round of the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program, making available up to $5 billion in tax credit allocation authority. The NMTC Program spurs investment of private sector capital into distressed communities by providing a tax credit to corporate or individual taxpayers who make qualified equity investments in designated Community Development Entities (CDEs). The CDEs, in turn, invest the capital raised into projects and businesses in low-income communities. The deadline for submission will be Wednesday, December 16, 2015. The CDFI Fund will also be holding two Q&A conference calls to answer application questions on Tuesday, October 27 at 2:00 p.m. ET and Thursday, October 29 at 3:30 p.m. ET.
A technical problem blocked account access for holders of one of the most popular prepaid cards, RushCard. RushCard’s problems started over the Columbus Day weekend, when it switched from one processing technology provider to another. Customers reported problems gaining access to their funds, swamping the company’s telephone service center and website. RushCard, founded in 2003 by the hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons, said on Tuesday that the problem had been mostly fixed. But thousands continued to experience difficulties. RushCard has been criticized previously for charging its largely unbanked customer base substantial fees for ATM withdrawals and for each point-of-sale transaction.