Recent News
City First Bank of DC is currently seeking an experienced & forward thinking Director of Bank Operations that will be responsible for the oversight of Branch Administration (including branch operations), Deposit Operations, Electronic Banking, and Product Implementation. Please circulate this job to any colleagues or contacts you think would be an excellent fit.
A recent survey from Schwab Retirement Plan Services, Inc. finds there are significant gaps between the way male and female Millennials approach planning and saving for retirement. Millennial men are close to evenly split on whether they are more concerned about being healthy enough or having enough money to enjoy retirement, while Millennial women are overwhelmingly more concerned with financial security once they stop working.
The transition team of President-elect Trump recently issued a statement laying out their intention to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act, therefore proposing regulatory relief for banks. As one of the first announcement out of the recently formed team, it is clear that domestic economic development policies will be at the heart of the new administration's agenda.
Regulatory efforts to expand fintech appear to have a clear bipartisan mandate as analysts discuss the impacts of the 2016 election on the upcoming 115th Congress. As the article states, "The pending Trump administration is also unlikely to derail efforts by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to address fintech, including the possibility of releasing a charter dedicated to fintech firms. The agency is due to make a decision on that by year-end, at which point a proposal would likely be issued."
Annie Donovan, CDFI Fund Director, shares her vision for the future of the CDFI & CDE movement nationwide at the Opportunity Finance Network Conference, a large gathering of CDFI-certified financial institutions held in late October. Watch the video here.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently published a report on the status of the Community Development Capital Initiative (CDCI) and documents related to the Early Repurchase Option. They reported that as of September 30th 2016, 55 of the original 84 financial institutions remain in the program including 24 banks and 35 credit unions. The 10 largest remaining institutions are all banks and account for $286 million (68%) of the outstanding investment while the remaining $134 million (32%) was spread among the rest of the financial institutions.
Urban Partnership Bank is living up to their name by partnering with a broad coalition of organizations to develop the Southwest Corridor Collaborative, a local initiative to spur economic development in a historically disinvested community. This innovative public-private partnership is being greeted with much fanfare across the city of Chicago. As a local resident explains, "I think it's absolutely amazing anytime you have someone bringing money and subsequently jobs into a community. This is what's needed."
Building on the Bank Black movement that started this past summer, UAW-Ford made a record $1.5 Million deposit in First Independence Bank. This deposit is a concrete way for UAW-Ford to publically demonstrate their commitment to investing in the Detroit community and can be held up as a model for other CDFI banks nationwide who are lookign to cultivate local organizations as customers.
Carver Federal Bank's demonstrated their commitment to expanding opportunities for Minority and Women Business Entrepreneurs in New York City during their recent business networking celebration. Honorees included two small business entrepreneurs and Carver customers, Make My Cake and Settepani Restaurant, as well as long-time community economic development advocate, Congressman Charles B. Rangel.
Local community and economic development depends on a combination of public and private funding, however it can be difficult to ascertain the net impact that private dollars are truly having. To address this, the Federal Reserve of Atlanta's Community & Economic Development department created a new tool, Following the Money, which analyzes foundation giving in localities across the country. This article includes a podcast produced by the Atlanta Fed and written transcript of the... Read more
Nichol Beckstrand, President of Sunrise Banks & Holding Company was recently named one of the Smartest People in Payments by PayBefore Magazine. Read more to learn about how embracing innovation and having a tolerance for failure has led to her and the bank's continuing success.
Michael Burris' forward-thinking mentality and focus on strong management, earned him the accolade of Small Bank CFO of the Year Finalist in the Arkansas Business of the Year Awards. Burris' successes include guiding FNBC Bank out of the recession and into their largest asset size yet - just north of $400 million.
The FDIC recently released its National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, the only major nationwide survey of financial inclusion and measures of the behaviors and attitudes of households likely to be excluded from the mainstream financial system. The biggest revelation was that unbanked households nationwide decreased from 7.7% in 2013 to 7.0% in 2015, which represents .5 million to 1 million new net households that have opened accounts in the past two years.
Since the most recent housing crisis, many loan modification programs were developed to protect financially struggling households from foreclosure. Based on several unique loan-level data sets, a newly released Federal Reserve study reports novel empirical evidence on how homeowners manage their credit before and after receiving modifications. This study demonstrates that interventions designed to improve household balance sheets could have a direct and sizable impact on borrower financial outcomes.
The First, A National Banking Association, has announced a merger with Gulf Coast Community Bank which will allow the banks to serve customers with 48 convenient locations in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. The combined company will have approximately $1.6 billion in total assets, $1.4 billion in total deposits, and $1.1 billion in total loans.
After rigorous evaluation, Albina Community Bank joins ten other Certified B Corporation banks worldwide, which demonstrates their longstanding commitment to making an impact in the Portland, Oregon community. CDBA Members now make up 50% of all Certified B Corp. Banks with members Spring Bank, Beneficial State Bank, Sunrise Banks, and Virginia Community Capital already having secured their certification.
CDBA Members are consistently on the cutting edge of new technology and opportunities to maximize and publicize the social impact they are having in local communities across the country. Naturally therefore it is fitting that City First Bank & Southern Bancorp are the two first institutional members to join Mighty, a new platform that will help "small but powerful" banks connect with potential depositors or investors who might be swayed to pick a bank based on positive social impact.
Although Google announced in May that it would ban all payday loan advertisements through its AdWords service, months after the policy was implemented brokers that connect borrowers to payday lenders still buy Google ads. They appear to have easily sidestepped the company's rules, leaving consumers still vulnerable to high-cost debt traps that can ruin their financial lives.