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.

In a piece for the Ford Foundation’s Equals Change Blog, Sunrise Banks CEO David Reiling writes that before banks can displace predatory lenders, they will need to consider the perspective of unbanked customers: “Why do consumers go to high-interest payday lenders to get small-dollar loans— and in the process rack up hundreds or thousands of dollars in debt—rather than to banks or credit unions? The answer is that most banks and credit unions simply don't offer small dollar loans... And while traditional checking and savings products are good and well tested, they are simply not ideal for people in every financial situation. We also know that customers consider accessibility, convenience and ease of use to be much more important than price—that’s why payday loans are so popular.”