Minority-led banks have seen remarkable and unprecedented growth since the pandemic. That’s good news, considering the link between the presence of such banks in a zip code and economic mobility for residents of color.
Originally published on Next City.
If you’ve ever wondered where local developers or local businesses get funding to build, acquire, improve or maintain your neighborhood’s cornerstores or other small storefronts, the answer is probably a community bank.
Despite the ubiquity of the top four largest banks — Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citi — community banks collectively still do more commercial real estate lending than these largest four banks combined, according to data reported to federal bank regulators.
Small developers and small businesses still prefer dealing with a small, local bank that can deal with them face-to-face, someone who knows them and knows the neighborhood and can see past what’s on paper to what existing residents in the neighborhood might want to have or want to keep around. Relationships still matter. Place still matters.
