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New Illinois Bank bets future on personal attention and service
Northwestern Financial Review, Apr 8, 2000 by Schroeder, Margaret
The bank's business outlook remains good. Sanders said Preferred Bank is about six months ahead of projections.
When a customer can walk into a bank and be addressed by his or her first name, reminisce about high school days or chit-chat about mutual friends with bank staff, that customer knows le or she is being treated as special.
Such scenarios aren't as common in today's high-tech, big budget world of banking, but at the newest financial institution in the small town of Casey Ill., that treatment should become the secret to its success.
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The leaders at Preferred Bank in Casey hope its approach to community banking takes that extra step by providing customers with better personal service than that of their competition, which includes locally-- owned The Casey National Bank, and a branch of Memphis, Tenn.-- based Union Planters Bank.
As chairman David Hensiek puts it, "We know [customers'] background, their integrity their honesty and their ability." And such knowledge allows employees "to give [the customer] down-home advice."
Fostering such a banker-customer relationship became the spark that created Preferred Bank in July That's when 10 local investors got together to offer an alternative to the growing trend toward bank consolidations with larger companies from outside the area.
Bank President Richard Sanders said investors thought something was missing from their small town in eastern Illinois, halfway between Effingham, Ill., and Terre Haute, Ind. "We're very, very clique-ish, and [the investors] didn't like outsiders. We wanted to put personal banking back into the community" he said.
Sanders described himself as the only "outsider" at the bank, bringing 30 years of banking experience to Casey from Federated Bank in Onarga, Ill.
"I had always wanted to start a bank and just never had the opportunity" he said. But that changed when the accounting firm his previous bank had been involved with began work with the organizers in Casey Sanders was soon asked to join the new venture.
The new bank was launched with $3 million. None of the 330-plus shareholders own more than 10 percent of the stock, a plan designed to make sure that no one person had too much control. It was also a way to get more local residents involved directly in the bank "Were darn near like a co-off" said Sanders. "It's good for the bank, too, because it gives you a pretty good customer base to start with."
With the exception of Sanders, the organizers are all local business people. They include Hensiek, an auto parts store owner; Stephen Johnson, a lawn care business owner, Everett Lawrence, who owns a gravel pit company; Cleone Markwell, a retired nursing home owner; Dick Maulding, owner of a local trucking company; Jeff Mitchell, a car dealer; Bill Savage, a retired car dealership owner and former mayor; James Yates, retired owner of a tool-and-die company and his son, Greg.
Nearly all of the investors live within a 10-mile radius of Casey "That makes quite a difference when people can see their neighbors and say, ' They own the bank; "Hensiek said.
The bank's location is another bonus. Just south of a major highway intersection and close to Interstate Highway 70, the bank is surrounded by local businesses, a church and high school. "Everybody in this town, probably within a week, goes by this bank," Sanders said.
For now, the bank's home remains a temporary modular facility Sanders said bank leaders plan to build a new headquarters on the 2.5-acre site where their temporary site is located. Plans for the building, as well as its budget have yet to be decided, but Sanders said that he expects it to be about 4,000-- square-feet with at least two drive-up stations.
The bank's business outlook remains good. Sanders said Preferred Bank is about six months ahead of projections with $10.5 million in assets, and more than $25 million in loans. He said that the bank's assets could reach $15 million by the end of the yeah and up to $50 million in five years.
While Casey, a town of fewer than 2,000 people, is in a rural area with a large agricultural base, the diversity of employment in the region lends itself to a variety of customers. "We run the whole gamut from business to $500 personal loans,' Sanders said. "We've got over a thousand accounts, and we don't have a niche as such."
Preferred Bank has seven employ ees and may add two more this year. Most members of the current staff were gleaned from area banks. Vice president Michael Black came from Greenup National Bank in Greenup, Ill; loan officer Tim Corey worked for Union Planters Bank in Casey; and cashier Tammi Janney and bookkeeper Eva Oakley formerly worked at The Casey National Bank.
Preferred Bank considers itself a full-service bank, and Hensiek suggested that increasing services will be a more immediate goal than physical expansion of the bank. Because of the changes in federal and state laws, he said the bank may evolve to keep up with the times by offering insurance and real estate. "I think you'll see us get into other services as demand requires," Hensiek said.
Copyright NFR Communications Inc Apr 8, 2000
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