del.icio.us
Digg
Sphere
Stumble
Technorati
Twitter
Community Banks Ready for Primetime
By Marc Tracy
Two articles make it clear that--especially in the wake of President Obama's new small business lending plan, which involves them prominently--the community banks, those locally-focused institutions with under $1 billion in assets, are feeling newly empowered. The Washington Post reports that the community banks marshaled their numbers in order to influence the course of banking regulatory reform in their favor. And the New York Times reports that the banks have seen a marketing and advertising opening now that the big banks have discredited themselves in the public eye so. The real-life slogan "Real Texans Bank Locally" perhaps says it all.
It's worth noting that the community banks' fortunes tend to be closely tied to that of small businesses generally. For one thing, in many cases community banks are themselves small businesses. But more importantly, they are frequently more inclined to lend to small businesses, particularly smaller ones with objective numbers that may not indicate that they are fabulous loan opportunities. Small businesses should be pulling for the community banks. And it seems that, finally, they have something to celebrate.
Comments (0)November 3, 2009 12:19 PM
