Community banking is truly relationship banking. Local market knowledge, relationship-based lending, and civic-minded service are key elements of community banks. Being physically located in the community allows us to easily build relationships with all of our customers which helps to better understand local factors, reputation, and past history with the bank.

Relationships play a large role in ensuring that the full customer story, not just hard numbers and scores, are considered when deciding loan approvals. I’ve learned that customers enjoy knowing the person behind the counter on a more personal level who’s willing to go beyond their banking needs. This is common with community bankers and their customers, who are oftentimes involved in the same organizations and activities and get to know each other on a personal level.

A great thing about community banks is that they re-invest their funds into local businesses and people through loans and other financial services for area individuals, families, and small businesses. Community banks also serve their communities through financial literacy classes and volunteer hours to support local organizations.

The beauty of the community banking model is that it allows community members to fuel the overall hometown economic engine. When you choose a community bank, you can take pride in knowing that you are helping the town in which you live, grow, and thrive. And clients who bank locally can rest assured that they are truly supporting and strengthening their local community.

Modern community banking is expanding to utilize banking services through online and digital platforms while also maintaining the personal touch. That’s because the experience for the customer needs to be the same great community bank experience regardless of how our customers choose to bank. The popularity of online and mobile banking has certainly helped level the playing field between community banks and national banks. And now that community banks are leveraging technology effectively, customer convenience is no longer tied to a large physical footprint.

The community bank model will continue to help communities and families flourish and thrive. We work hard to keep in touch with the needs of our customers because strengthening the communities where we live and work is an extremely important part of what we do.