St. Paul, Minn.-based Sunrise Banks recently received $250 million from the U.S. Treasury Department as part of the Emergency Capital Investment Program.
Sunrise Banks, designated as a Community Development Financial Institution, received a portion of the $8.28 trillion the Treasury allocated to 162 banks, holding companies and credit unions through the ECIP. The funds support community financial institutions to provide loans, grants and other assistance to small and minority-owned businesses and customers in low-income and financially underserved communities especially impacted during the pandemic.
As reported by the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Sunrise Banks received the money as a sale of a perpetual preferred stock. Sunrise will need to pay 2 percent or approximately $5 million of that back annually to the Treasury, the Pioneer Press reported.
The $2 billion bank, which issues more than $100 million in loans annually to undercapitalized small businesses and low-income residents, could use the Treasury funding to more than double its lending.
Sunrise announced in late 2020 that it is closing two of its St. Paul branches to sell to local nonprofits. The bank worked closely with the nonprofit Creative Enterprise Zone on the sale of the Vandalia location, which is now shared by two nonprofits: Habitat for Humanity of Minnesota and the Northcountry Cooperative Foundation. The other former branch, on Arcade Street near Jefferson High School, was acquired by the Twin Cities Community Land Bank on behalf of the nonprofit arts and culture organization 30,000 Feet.
Other Midwest banks that received investments through the Emergency Capital Investment Program included:
- Ozarks Heritage Financial Group, Inc., Gainesville, Mo., $99 million
- Central Bancshares of Kansas City, Inc., $75 million
- First Independence Corp., Detroit, $45 million
- Millennium Bancorp, Inc., Des Plaines, Ill., $40 million
- Stark Bancshares, Inc., Bolivar, Mo., $12 million