Entries from BizBox Blog on Slate tagged with 'community banks'
A Tale of Community Banking
MSNBC runs a fantastic little story on the small businesses of Westwood, N.J. and how they have come to rely on the local, publicly owned community bank to get them through the months and years. (The community bank in question,...
Community Banks Ready for Primetime
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...
The Banks Don't Like Obama's New Plan
Though the main target of President Obama's plan to increase small business lending is, naturally, small businesses--particularly those in need of credit--it appears to be something that would help the community banks, too. After all, they would be permitted to...
How The Newly Important Community Banks Are Doing
Since President Obama's new plan to increase small-business credit envisions a major role for the community banks--those small, locally-focused institutions wither under $1 billion in assets--it's probably important that we take stock of how those banks are doing. According to...
Details of Obama's Small Business Plan Emerge
Today, President Barack Obama headed out just past the Beltway to Landover, Md.--home of, among other things, FedEx Field, the stadium of perhaps the National Football League's most hapless franchise (Impeach Dan Synder!)--to tout his new plans to help small...
The Problem With the FDIC's New Small Bank Committee
Okay, so here it is: the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has a new advisory committee on community banking. Except for one professor, it is made up entirely of Presidents and CEOs of community banks. A small problem with this set-up...
The Pluses of P2P Lending
Our sister site Slate runs a characteristically witty and insightful take on peer-to-peer lending Websites--in which wannabe borrowers tell their stories and ask to borrow money from, well, pretty much anyone who happens upon their request and wants to fulfill...
Bernanke Praises Community Lenders
Last week, we explored the paradox that while small-business demand for credit at traditional banks is down, demand at so-called Community Development Financial Institutions--small lenders that traditionally focus on low-income borrowers and neighborhoods--is up. Specifically, the CDFIs are seeing lots...
Philanthropy...For Profit
Here's a wonderful feel-good story to begin your day. It makes us feel good, anyway, because it combines two of our favorite obsessions: community banks and creative capitalism (remember: the key to creative capitalism is the insight that for-profit ventures...
Lending Happens
We could blog these articles ad infinitum. The Times reports that while national banks have cut small-business lending, small-business lending is actually up. The people you can thank? The community banks, which are apparently, according to one study, three times...
Community Banks' Victory at the FDIC
When we covered Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's speech to the Independent Community Bankers of America two weeks ago, we focused on the main bit of news: that the feds are reopening the Capital Purchase Program, under which capital is injected...
Profile of a Community Banker
The New York Times Magazine last week joined its print counterpart in celebrating community banks. They profile the impeccably named Rusy Cloutier, who turned Louisiana community bank MidSouth into one with 35 branches that publicly trades for over $900 million....
The Government Finally Does Right By Community Banks
We were pleased last week to find Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announcing the extension of an old lending program to community banks. As we've said countless times, these banks--small, locally focused, holding under $1 billion--are the lifeblood of small-business credit,...
Geithner: Lending Program Extended
Earlier this morning, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner spoke to the Independent Community Bankers of America, which represents, as he noted, the over 8300 small and mid-sized banks in America--all of which hold under $1 billion in assets--which together comprise over...
Hooray for Community Banks!
Well look what's on the front page of the New York Times--an article about community banks! Welcome to the party, Gray Lady! You are a little late, but we'll forgive you, because as many as possible should know how awesome...
A Community Bank Success Story
We're suckers for stories about community banks, those small (under $1 billion in assets), locally-focused lending institutions that are both a crucial credit lifeline for small businesses and, typically, small businesses themselves. The New York Times ran a good one...
How Badly (Or Not) Are Banks Really Doing?
It turns out that the community banks--those small (under $1 billion in assets), locally-focused financial institutions whom BizBox has veritably lionized these last several months--have been doing alright even now. According to Entrepreneur.com, over half saw an increase in deposits...
Guess Who's Still Offering Credit?
As the stimulus bill prepares for enactment, it's time to take a last, pre-stimulus look at the small-business credit climate. We say pre-stimulus because, well, the bank bailout--of which one can also expect a round two--did not increase lending as...
Are Community Banks In Major Trouble?
No one--but no one--is a bigger booster of the community banks than BizBox. (Look at all we've written up about them!) These small (under $1 billion in assets), locally focused financial institutions tend to understand their, well, communities better than...
Did Your Bank Take Federal Money?
Although it ran over two weeks ago, this Wall Street Journal article on the community banks--those small (under $1 billion in assets), locally-focused financial institutions that we've covered extensively--is still very, very much worth your time. It does a phenomenal...
I've Found A Bank That Actually Lends!
Well, there’s a been a whole lot of discussion here about whether banks are lending to small businesses in this environment. For BizBox posts alone, see here and here. Oh, and here, too. So I thought I’d share my...
The Bank-Pickin' Is Mighty Fine
We thought we'd highlight a wonderful blogpost we just came across from the blog Your Friendly Neighborhood Computer Guy, which chronicles, among other things, the blogger's quest (his word) to start his own computer business. His latest topic: how...
Subprime Lending For Fun--And Profit!
Daniel Gross, the exceptional business columnist for our sister sites Slate and The Big Money, has a great article on the ethical subprime lending industry--folks who have figured out how to provide financing to lower-income and minority homebuyers, and...
What Makes The Community Banks So Valuable
We've been hearing for over a month now how the community banks are going to be among small business' lenders of last resort. The good news here is that these small (under $1 billion in assets), locally-focused institutions tend...
More Bailout Concerns
And the implementation of the $700 billion bailout plan just keeps getting more bizarre. First the money was to buy up toxic mortgage-backed securities, the better to establish a legitimate market price for them and thereby enable banks to...
Big Banker Sez: Time To Help The Small Banks
A few days ago, the New York Times's Joe Nocera reported on big banks' plans to take the billions in government money they are getting from the $700 billion bailout package and use it not to increase loans and...
Community Banks Gear Up For A Fight
We reported Monday that from the government's perspective the point of the $700 billion capital injection into big banks is less to encourage the banks to loan out that money in turn and more to give the banks the capital...
It's A Wonderful Small Bank
The New York Times runs an article not for its Business but rather for its Metro section on main street banks, today's Bailey S&Ls. These small institutions are important for small business owners to watch for two reasons. First,...
Should Small Businesses Support The Bailout?
"I had heard that there was not much in the bail out bill for small businesses, so I hope you are right," a commenter writes on our earlier post, "How The Bailout Would Help Small Business". A good post...
How The Bailout Would Help Small Business
Just yesterday we asked, of the proposed bailout, "What's In It For The Small Businesses?" The answer, among other things (firming up the credit markets, as the $700 billion asset-purchase program is intended to do, would most definitely be...
What's in It For The Small Businesses?
If the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday is any indication, the broader business community was not well served by the failure of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the $700 billion bailout plan (although this...
How To Secure Credit, Even Now
As we said in our previous post, we're going to withhold too much comment on any financial industry bailout until such a bailout appears to have a chance of actually being, you know, enacted. (It's worth quickly mentioning that...
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