Busey Bank, Champaign, Ill., has completed its second merger of the year, most recently with South Side Trust & Savings Bank, Peoria, Ill., and one this summer with First Community Financial Bank, Joliet, Ill. [Continue]
Equity Bank, Andover, Kan., has received approval to complete its previously announced mergers with Eastman National Bank of Newkirk, Okla., and Patriot Bank of Tulsa, Okla. [Continue]
Kraig Lounsberry will take over as president of the Community Bankers Association of Illinois on Jan. 1. Only one person has ever held the position, Bob Wingert for the past 43 years. Lounsberry spoke with NorthWestern Financial Review writer Douglas Farmer. [Continue]
Tim Kluender has been named president and chief executive officer of Community Bank Owatonna in Owatonna, Minn. Kluender has 24 years of banking experience, with the last 15 years in an executive management capacity. He has spent his entire career working in the community banking industry, beginning as an officer trainee in his hometown bank in Osceola, Iowa. Kluender most recently served as a senior vice president/chief credit officer for First National Bank in Fairfield, Iowa. [Continue]
Opportunity Bank of Montana, Helena, will acquire Ruby Valley Bank, Twin Bridges, Mont. According to FDIC records the acquisition of the $90 million Ruby Valley will make Opportunity the fifth-largest Montana-based bank with $800 million in assets. Ruby Valley has two branches — Twin Bridges and Sheridan — and the combined company will have 16 branches. [Continue]
It is a natural symptom of the banker-regulator relationship: Rarely does a banker say something nice about a regulator. Julie Dahle has been the exception on both sides. [Continue]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finalized its payday lending rule, creating “strong, common-sense protections” to prevent “financially vulnerable consumers” from falling into “payday debt traps,” the bureau said. [Continue]
Jenny Jakel has been a part of AbbyBank for 41 years, a period in which the Abbotsford, Wis., bank has grown to $458 million from $13 million. Yet, Jakel’s preferred focus does not involve any discussion of profits. For that matter, it hardly deals with AbbyBank’s current customers. [Continue]
The Nobel Prize in Economics awarded Oct. 8 to professor Richard H. Thaler for his behavioral economics work on irrational financial decisions confirms the Money Anxiety Theory and its application in banking.
Research in behavioral economics shows that money anxiety is a major factor impacting financial decision-making. The 2013 book, “Money Anxiety,” which I wrote, demonstrates how money anxiety shapes our financial decision making. For example, when money anxiety is elevated during recessions, people tend to shift money from higher yielding bank accounts to much lower yielding bank accounts just to feel that their money is more readily available. This is a phenomenon known as “mattress money.” [Continue]
Oregon Community Bank’s management could see economic growth taking hold in the Madison area. A suburb of about 10,000 people 10 miles south of the Wisconsin capital, Oregon may be an unlikely place to spot the early bounce back from the recent recession, but Oregon Community President and CEO Steve Peotter was confident the incoming loans in late 2013 and early 2014 were not outliers. [Continue]