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Central Payments announced last month its seven-member advisory board for Falls Fintech, the organization's early-stage, onsite accelerator for upstart financial technology companies. Nikkee Rhody, Falls Fintech Managing Director and Co-founder, commented on the group: "This advisory board reflects our commitment to connecting accelerator participants with fintech pioneers and thought leaders, and this group's contributions have already been felt as we finalize plans for our inaugural cohort." Among the seven members is Bill Dana, Vice Chairman and former President/CEO at Central Bank of Kansas City.
City First Bank is thrilled to welcome Annie Donovan to the bank's Board of Directors. Donovan currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a national nonprofit that works with community-based partners to make investments in housing, businesses, jobs, education, safety and health. "We are extremely fortunate to have the benefit of Annie's extraordinary leadership; impressive intellect; and deep experience with innovative and successful approaches for developing healthy, sustainable communities," said Brian E. Argrett, President and CEO of City First. "Her current and past work are in seamless alignment with City First's mission and values."
Although his own Treasury Department calls the Community Development Financial Institutions program a "thriving model of public-private partnership," President Trump on Monday once again proposed eliminating the program. The proposal was included in the Trump Administration's $4.8 Trillion FY21 budget released Monday. This year, the program received a $12 million increase, to $262 million, in the end-of-year spending deal enacted in December. The proposed cuts came even after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a House appropriations subcommittee in April that the administration had not conducted research into the program's impact.
CDBA members VCC, Sunrise Banks, Beneficial State Bank, and Amalgamated Bank have been awarded Real Leaders Impact Awards. These awards honor the 100 top impact companies applying capitalism for greater profit and greater good. It's the annual ranking of positive impact companies in the world. These companies are driving a dynamic segment of the economy, bearing a new vision of capitalism that demonstrates every transaction is an opportunity for growth and a better world.
The Marketing AI Strategy Project Intern will conduct market and audience research to develop, build and implement solutions for increasing loan growth for a specific bank offered product. Additionally, they will assist the Impact Team with other tasks as needed in areas such as marketing support, internal communications, writing and/or customer experience.
Sunrise Banks Chief Brand Officer Becca Hoeft has received Ragan's Top Women in Communication Award, an honor that recognizes female communicators advancing their profession and accelerating growth for their organization. Hoeft was recognized in the "Leader" category and among roughly 100 other winners from major companies across the globe, including Aflac, Best Buy, Amazon, The FBI and Cisco. According to Ragan, the award is given to those who inspire others and are "changing the narrative" in the communications and public relations sector.
Backed by guarantee commitments from 10 philanthropic organizations across the United States and a large health care system, the Community Investment Guarantee Pool (the Pool) announced its formation. Guarantees are unfunded commitments from an organization's endowment that offer risk mitigation. The Pool, with guarantee commitments totaling $33.1 million, is a new tool for community development finance and the first of its kind in the U.S. It is expected to catalyze more than $150 million in new community investments in small businesses, climate and affordable housing. LOCUS Impact Investing (LOCUS), a subsidiary of Virginia Community Capital, will serve as the program manager working with the investors, underwriting guarantee commitments as well as monitoring and managing the portfolio for both impact and risk.
A plan to modernize the Community Reinvestment Act should theoretically be welcomed by community development financial institutions, but many such organizations are raising alarm about a key component of the proposal written by two federal regulators. The framework drafted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would place a new emphasis on the dollar amount of CRA projects for banks to be in compliance. This worries CDFI loan funds, which specialize in making relatively small credits and worry the new plan will lead to less capital from bank partners.
Urban and rural America lost branch banks at a similar rate from 2012 to 2017, according to the Federal Reserve. But the loss could have graver consequences for a larger proportion of rural areas.About 40 percent of rural counties experienced a net loss of branch banks from 2012 to 2017, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve System. The study found that 39 of these rural counties were "deeply affected" by the loss of banking services, meaning they had 10 or fewer bank branches in 2012 and lost at least half that number over the five-year period.
Americans desperately need help saving money, and fintechs are stepping up with intuitive apps that make saving simple and automatic. As consumers now funnel billions of dollars into these apps, banks and credit unions that don't join the crowd could be missing out on a big opportunity.