Recent News
Community Bank of the Bay (CBB), a leading San Francisco Bay area commercial bank, has partnered with Numerated, the fast-growing fintech making business banking easy for financial institutions and their clients. With a reputation for being an innovative community bank, CBB will use Numerated's digital lending platform to meet business clients' growing demand for digital channels. CBB will leverage... Read more
No one can reasonably deny that when the overall economy gets a cold, low- and moderate-income individuals and neighborhoods get the flu, largely through no imprudence of their own. History proves that lower-income families, particularly those comprising people of color, get fired first and rehired last. As a result, no matter how hard they work to save, they're almost always left a step behind. The Great Recession was a clear example: While a range of big banking institutions were given taxpayer bailouts, more modest communities were left with a Sisyphean boulder. As we emerge from the... Read more
Southern Bancorp Community Partners (SBCP) seeks a President who brings dynamic and visionary leadership to a nationally respected, high impact community development financial institution delivering loans, development services focused on credit and savings and policy advocacy to expand economic opportunity. Southern Bancorp Community Partners (SBCP) is a certified nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) established in 1987 to create economic opportunity in financially underserved communities.
Every year, B Lab recognizes the top-performing B Corps creating the greatest impact through their businesses. These B Corps are named Best for the World as their verified scores in the five impact areas evaluated on the B Impact Assessment (BIA)—community, customers, environment, governance, and workers—are amongst the global top 5% in their corresponding size group. These businesses are proving that competing not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world, is a winning strategy, and they can lead the way as more businesses continue to join the movement that is... Read more
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is launching a streamlined application portal to allow borrowers with Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans $150,000 or less through participating lenders to apply for forgiveness directly through the SBA. This new change will help rush relief to over 6.5 million smallest of small businesses which has been the Administrator’s priority since day one. The new forgiveness platform will begin accepting applications from borrowers on August 4th, 2021. Lenders are required to opt-in to this program through... Read more
Join the San Francisco Fed on August 25 for a virtual event titled "Fintech, Racial Equity, and an Inclusive Financial System" to launch a new issue of Community Development Innovation Review. The event will explore the promises and pitfalls of fintech as a means of expanding financial inclusion and reaching underserved communities of color. Innovations in financial technology, or fintech, are changing the ways people interact with the financial system. With these changes comes the possibility of improving inclusion for those who currently lack access to the traditional financial... Read more
Climate First Bank, the nation's only bank founded specifically to combat the climate crisis, today welcomes four new hires to its team. The additions include Holly Bridwell as marketing director and wingwoman to the chairman, Lauren Dubé as vice president and director of client and mission partnerships, Blaine Worak as senior vice president, senior credit administrator and loan operations manager, and Rachel Yorston as commercial and government-guaranteed lending associate. Dubbed the "Mighty Millennials," these brilliant, young professionals and their collective dedication to prevent the... Read more
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced it will propose rescinding the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rule issued in May 2020 and is committed to working with the Federal Reserve (Board) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to put forward a joint rulemaking that strengthens and modernizes the CRA.
This decision follows the completion of a review initiated by Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu shortly after he took office."To ensure fairness in the face of persistent and rising inequality and changes in banking, the CRA must be... Read more
SouthState Bank announced an investment of $500,000 into Optus Bank, a federally designated minority depository institution (MDI) and community development financial institution (CDFI), in support of the bank's mission to close the wealth gap in previously unbanked, underbanked, and historically underserved people and places. "Fulfilling our commitment to closing the opportunity gaps in our communities requires strategic investments from mission-aligned partners like SouthState. With support of their equity investment, we have raised a total of $17 million in new capital since 2020... Read more
The legislative housing package led by Congresswoman Maxine Waters includes: The Housing is Infrastructure Act of 2021, which would provide a historic investment of over $600 billion in equitable, affordable, and accessible housing infrastructure. This generational investment would address our national eviction and homelessness crises, increase access to homeownership, and support a robust recovery from the pandemic by creating jobs, addressing climate change, and improving housing stability for struggling households; The Ending Homelessness Act of 2021, which would end homelessness... Read more
America's largest Black owned bank, OneUnited Bank, has made history again with its inaugural free OneTransaction Conference to close the racial wealth gap which happened on Juneteenth (June 19,2021). The conference boasted registrations of over 30,000 people! Attendees enjoyed back-to-back informative and entertaining 1-hour sessions that highlighted the OneTransaction formula – choosing one transaction to focus on in 2021 - with Black finance experts like The Budgetnista, Sharon Epperson and Chris Browning, as well as pop icons Daymond John who talked about how he built his profitable... Read more
Different demographic groups in the United States use banks in different ways. White Americans are far more likely to have a bank account and use banking services. Black, Indigenous and people of color, by contrast, are more likely to be unbanked or underbanked. A century ago, that was by design, but with the passage of anti-discrimination and anti-redlining laws in the 1960s and 1970s, nonwhite Americans have gradually been increasing their access to the financial mainstream. But there's one group that has been harder to reach than any other: Indigenous communities, and particularly... Read more
Large U.S. banks have had diversity officers and teams in place for years, according to Naomi Mercer, SVP diversity, equity and inclusion at ABA. But Floyd's death and the events that unfolded after have created "more of an empathy shock" for many bankers, who might not have realized how deep racial disparities are. As a result, more community and regional banks have been adding diversity officer positions, often housed within human resources, to help support the bank in broadening their employee base to reflect the full communities they serve. Increasingly, established banks are not... Read more
The price of a single Bitcoin may be around half of what it was just a few months ago, but that doesn't mean crypto has run its course. The reality is, cryptocurrency has always been volatile in general, and Bitcoin has still shown an upward trend since inception, albeit with plenty of bumps along the road. Over the last few years, an array of banks and financial institutions have created new ways for Bitcoin enthusiasts to get into the game via bank deposits and even credit card spending. One new choice in the debit space is Quontic Bank’s Bitcoin Rewards Checking, which offers 1.5% back... Read more
For 24 years, Ericka Gray has owned her own mediation and arbitration business in Arlington, Massachusetts, helping organizations navigate workplace disputes. But when the Covid-19 pandemic began, her income completely dried up. In May 2020, Citizens Bank approved her for a $5,800 PPP loan. It wasn’t a huge sum compared the multimillion-dollar loans some corporations received, but Gray had enough income to pay her mortgage and cover her health care costs. But in May 2021, Gray received a shocking email from Citizens explaining that no, she shouldn’t have received $5,800. Instead, a bank... Read more
President Biden wants banks to make customer data portable. The directive can be interpreted in many different ways and may prove easier said than done. The White House, as part of a broad executive order meant to promote competition across the U.S. economy, says it "encourages the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to issue rules allowing customers to download their banking data and take it with them." The administration wants to "make it easier and cheaper" for consumers to take their business to rivals. How much of an effort this will require banks to make from a technology and... Read more
Remitly, a Seattle-based firm that provides international remittances and digital financial services for immigrants, has added new banking features in its money management app Passbook. Launched early last year, Passbook aims to simplify the process of opening and using a bank account for immigrants in the U.S. by eliminating banking fees, accepting alternative forms of identification, and facilitating international money transfers. The digital banking services on the Passbook app are offered through a bank account issued by Sunrise Banks, a Certified B Corp and partner bank with... Read more
For those preparing to apply for the FY 2021 application round, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) conducted an informational pre-application webinar on June 30, 2021 for the Capital Magnet Fund. The presentation and a recording of the session are available on the CDFI Fund's website at www.cdfifund.gov/cmf under How to Apply Step 2: Apply.
While they aren't synonymous—although there is some overlap between the two categories—community development financial institutions and minority depository institutions have common roots in a shared historical purpose. “The roots of the CDFI banking sector began with the minority depository institutions,” says Jeannine Jacokes, chief executive of the Community Development Bankers Association. “In the early 20th century, when it was legal to refuse service to a customer on the basis of race, Black business people began organizing financial institutions that were Black-owned and committed to... Read more
Certified by the U.S. Department of Treasury, nearly 1,300 CDFIs serve persistently impoverished communities and historically underserved populations with responsible financial services and technical assistance. The pandemic illustrated the financial services ecosystem's failure to serve poor, disabled, and BIPOC people and communities; yet CDFIs filled the gap and succeeded in serving these overlooked and financially vulnerable populations. To motivate others to invest, we highlight three CDFI investors. One investor couple is laser-focused on their home community of Lancaster; another... Read more