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What Sets Community Banks Apart

We know you have options when it comes to banking. First International Bank & Trust offers all the mobile convenience you expect from a large national bank or online bank, but with the care and personal touch only a community bank can provide. If you’re thinking of applying for a loan, or opening an account, consider the following benefits of banking with us.

  • Local Focus: Unlike larger banks that may take deposits in one state and lend in others, community banks channel their loans to the neighborhoods in which their depositors live and work, which helps local businesses and communities thrive.
  • Relationship Banking: Community bank officers know their customers and may consider family history and discretionary spending in making loans. Loan officers at megabanks apply impersonal qualification criteria, such as credit scoring, without regard to individual circumstances.
  • Provide Innovative Solutions: Community bankers also work hand in hand with customers to ensure they have access to the best innovations possible to meet their needs—such as the most secure, reliable and convenient payment options.
  • Lending Leadership to Small Business: According to the Federal Reserve’s 2016 Small Business Credit Survey: Report on Employer Firms, community banks are the small-business lender of choice.
  • Timely Decision-Making: Community banks offer nimble decision-making on business loans because decisions are made locally. Megabanks must often convene loan-approval committees that are located in another state, far away from their customers.
  • Community Engagement and Accessibility: Community bank officers are typically deeply involved in their local communities, while megabank officers are often detached from the communities where their branches are located.
  • Focus on Main Street: As local small businesses themselves, community banks only thrive when their customers and communities flourish. They answer to Main Street. Megabanks are driven by shareholder value and answer to Wall Street.


Information taken from icba.com.