It really is the cumulative impact. When you think about higher capital requirements, lower fee income, because traditional fees that we've charged for years are now under attack. And at the same time you're spending more to implements software and technology that's necessary to track 1071, and and interchange revenue is also under attack. So it's coming from all different directions. It's a bunch of agencies writing a bunch of rules, and it's not coordinated.
So it's coming at us all and it really does make bankers wonder whether or not they have a profitable future.
From the American bankers association. This is the ABA banking journal podcast. Welcome back. I'm Evan sparks. Today's episode is presented by R&T Deposit Solutions. We're here in early April. It's just a couple of weeks after the ABA Washington summit, we had over a thousand bankers here in DC for a fantastic program. And I wanted to share with you one more conversation from the summit. It's with Peter Cook, our chief communications officer and my boss.
Peter had a great conversation with four senior bank leaders. They talked about the economy, they talked about the the local economic conditions about how policy issues are affecting their bank and what they're most excited about for the future. So in the net in this next episode, you'll hear Peter's conversation with ABA chair, Julie Thurlow from Redding cooperative bank. You'll hear John Asbury, ABA chair-elect and from Atlantic union bank in Richmond, Virginia.
You'll hear from Kenneth Kelly ABA. Vice-chair from first independence bank in Detroit. And ABA board member, Brent Beardall from WaFd Bank out in Seattle. Thanks for listening.
Thank all of you for being here . Always a highlight for me to be able to chat with our members, particularly for board members right now. We know where you're all from, but not everyone here may necessarily and some people watching on C SPAN, for example, may not know. All that much about your individual institutions. So Julie, as our chair, I'll ask you to go first. Tell us a little bit about your bank and just paint a picture of Reading Cooperative Bank for us.
Sure. Reading Cooperative Bank is a mutual bank. We are in Boston. We're north of Boston, Massachusetts, about 15 miles. We actually cover from Lawrence to Lynn, if you're familiar with the North Shore. We are depositor owned. We were founded in 1886. And we're nine branch operation.
I think I mentioned that we're 900 million in assets but our last couple of office have been intentionally opened in communities in minority, majority communities with an intent to address financial needs in those communities.
Kenneth, do you want to go next?
Thank you, Peter, yes. Good morning, everyone. My name is Kenneth Kelly. I serve as Chairman and CEO of First Independence Bank, based in Detroit, Michigan. We've been in business now for going on 54 years. We were one of the positive outcomes of the 1967 riots in Detroit, becoming the first African American owned and controlled bank in the state of Michigan. We currently have actually operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Part of George Floyd's murder was the outcome of banks in that market said that we wanted to do something differently. And we got invited to come and look at the opportunity to expand into that market. And so, we're proud to represent the team there in Detroit that does a fine job every day trying to bring financial services to that community.
Great. And Brent. Yeah, good morning, Peter. Thank you for having me. I'm from Seattle. So I need to pay tribute to Marshawn Lynch. I'm just here. So I don't get fined.
That is not true. They're no.
The board fees are going to be withheld. I understand. No, I pleasure to be here. I have the good fortune of being the CEO of WaFd Bank. We are now a 30 billion dollar bank in the West Coast 9 Western States from Washington all the way down to Texas. We just completed an 8 billion acquisition of Luther Burbank Savings after 15 months of waiting to get regulatory approval. We finally got that done. We closed on the transaction at 11. 59 on Thursday, February 29th.
Then the next day, Friday, we closed the branches down, started the conversion, and I'm very pleased to report that on Sunday night at 8 p. m. We got it all done. So to my knowledge, one of the fastest close to conversions ever and we're net positive on deposit. So I'm a happy guy sitting on stage.
Great. And John?
Thank you, Peter. We're Atlantic Union Bank. We operate throughout Virginia. We're a diversified full service bank. We're a little over 21 billion in assets. Our roots go back to 1902. While we are principally a Virginia bank, we do have some operations in Maryland and North Carolina. We also have a merger about to close on April 1. We are merging with a wonderful 114 year old Virginia community bank called American National Bank.
Fine institution longtime friends of ours and they operate in the western and southern part of the state and North Carolina. So we're, we are excited about the expansion into North Carolina. So that was our story.
So four banks representing the diversity of the banking sector and many respects here in this country, the strength of, of the banking sector here in the U. S. and the fact that the U. S. is again, very different than so many other countries in terms of the depth and breadth of our institutions. How's business? If you had to write input as to the picture of the economy, the state of the economy right now. John, how is it?
Pretty good. It's really a function of our markets. We're blessed in Virginia, which is where most of our exposure is and North Carolina, increasingly with two very good economies, Peter. So I would say it's, yeah, business is pretty good. You know, things have slowed a bit, but our commercial industrial clients are doing just fine. They're still liquid. They've been resilient on the commercial real estate side. And then we'll perhaps talk about that later.
We're seeing fewer projects underway now being started mainly just because of the higher cost of interest rates, the amount of capital that needs to go in, equity in order to make the project work. The credit is quiescent. Credit continues to be very quiet and the fundamental health of our economy in which we operate in looks good to me. So slower but doing, doing fine.
Anyone have a different take on that? Is that what's happening in your, your neighborhoods?
Things are good in Boston. Our delinquency is probably the lowest it's ever been. It's the lowest it's ever been since I've been in the, in the bank. So, consumers seem to be doing and faring well. From a commercial standpoint, I know there are rumblings, but commercial takes a lot of different forms. Multifamily office manufacturing, owner occupied real estate. So the diversity of our portfolios will support the strength of our organizations. Yeah.
Let me, let me follow up on that. Commercial real estate has been a hot topic. If you watch Any of the business news channels, which I used to work a few moons ago it's been a hot topic. Help the public audience understand what commercial real estate, your point, Julie, about commercial real estate, it, it, there's been an an effort to try and sort of generalize here, but you have to look specifically, don't you?
I think so. And let's be honest, there are some zip codes, city centers that are going to have some difficulty. When people don't go to the office as often to do their work then they're going to be people that change their and renegotiate their leases. And so there will be some instability in certain sections of the portfolio. But the whole commercial portfolio is not actually exposed. And a lot of businesses, as John mentioned, C&I businesses are, are very strong right now.
If, if I could, I'm on a personal vendetta to set the record straight. The sky is not falling on commercial real estate. Stop the madness. There are so many chicken littles out there on TV. Stop! There will be issues in pockets of commercial real estate, as Julie pointed out. I mean, in my mind, there's four things you need to know about commercial real estate. Number one is what category of commercial real estate.
Saying commercial real estate is a bad thing is like saying the stock market is a bad thing. There's companies that are bad. There's companies that are overvalued. But overall, you have to take the broad. I mean, there's thousands of categories of commercial real estate. Number two is location. Location, location. Where, where's the real estate you have? It matters. Are you downtown Manhattan? Are you in Washington D. C.? Are you in Salt Lake City?
I, I mean it, it matters a great deal where people and one statistic I wish we all had that to my knowledge nobody has a very good statistic is physical occupancy of office buildings. We all talk about occupancy, we talk about financial occupancy. That really doesn't matter. What matters is physical occupancy, because that means if your workers are coming in, you're going to renew your lease that comes to, then you need to understand how much equity is in the deal.
If somebody only has 10 percent equity, they're going, they're going to walk pretty quickly. If they have 50 percent equity, they're going to be along for the ride. Then lastly, as we all know, the most important characteristic of those we lend to his character. So it is really hard to say, Oh, my goodness, you have a CRE concentration.
I, I believe in what Warren Buffett said, a concentration can be a good thing if it's concentrated in the right place, or it can be a bad thing, but stop categorizing commercial real estate as bad.
I think Brent makes some really good points, which is, it's not all the same thing. It is very localized. The nature of the properties are so different. What issues around the office are very different from apartment buildings and hotels. At the end of the day, the concern, the overarching concern is rates are higher. And so historically, commercial real estate has been a pretty good hedge against inflation. So we look at multifamily apartments in our markets and rents are still going up.
And so cash, sure, debt service is higher, capitalization rates are higher, which suggests values go lower, but cash flows are up too. It's not true for office, you know, office is a whole different conversation. That's not so much about interest rates. That's more about just sort of a structural change in the nature of work.
But then it comes down to, are you talking about high rise office buildings and, you know, major metro areas or are you talking about like suburban, single story, mid rise office buildings typically leased to local tenants? Who are less supportive of remote work, hybrid work, et cetera. It is all about, are you using the office space or not? So, Peter, I think it's, it's just not one thing. And there's a lot of press about rent control department buildings.
And that's, yeah, that's a very localized issue. You, you, very few places in the country is that an issue. So, it's not one thing.
Let me ask you about something else that's happened in the last year. And that is what, what Rob spoke about in his remarks. The, the regulatory changes coming from here in Washington. A, a long list. The Basel Capital Rules. We heard about Late Fee proposal. Overdraft. Reg II on interchange for debit cards. Any number of proposals that have come. Rob called it the tsunami of regulatory changes.
As bank leaders, as the CEOs of your institutions, how much of your time right now has been devoted to dealing with these issues, planning for these issues? Is, is this, just walk me through how you're navigating this right now. Julie, maybe I'll start with you on the end.
Sure. So so it is a tsunami of regulation when you think about 1071 and there there's just a tremendous amount of requirements for our institution inside the organization, keeping people when, when you actually look at the number of pages, I think it was 5, 000 pages in total. As far as the amount of regulations we need to sift through and then figure out how that actually applies to our institution.
The new CRA rules are going to fundamentally change the business model and how we actually operate, how we actually meet our communities, how broad our communities are, and who we now need to serve. And so it really makes you rethink how, how we go about the business of banking.
And that's the reason I think all of us are in the room and are really engaged in this conversation right now, because we really need to push back so that we actually protect our model and can continue to provide the financial services and meet the needs of our community.
Is there a particular proposal, and I'll invite this to the rest of the panelists, that's, that stands out to you, one that causes you the most concern where if you had the ear of regulators, you'd love to, for them to hear X. John, I see you nodding. I'll let you go
first. Well, there, there are challenges with all, if you ask me what I think has the potential to have the most unintended consequences over time that would CRA reform. Okay. And I think we would all say that we're in favor of CRA reform. There are many aspects of the proposal that I think we as an industry support, but there are also some, some unintended consequences that I think have not been fully thought through. And that's why the industry is pushing back.
You know, you've got to sort of start with what is it you're trying to accomplish from a policy standpoint, what's the outcome and work back from there. But when you put out these thousand page documents, it is riddled with unintended consequences. And I think that's the role of the industry to really hear it, have its voice heard as part of what the ABA is doing here. The com it's right. Comment letters, pay attention to these things.
I won't get into reg AI right now, but it's very important that we speak up as an industry and sort of point out, look, practically, here's what might happen and that needs to be taken into consideration.
You know, on to that end, it's a cumulative total. It's not any one, each one of them. You can poke holes at it. And I am so grateful for the ABA for standing up for us collectively. Right. People talk all the time. Why aren't there no more, no, more, no de novo banks. Why aren't people coming into the industry? Is it because of the regulatory framework? I think the fundamental answer is no. The profitability in the industry. Why would someone want to put their capital into banking?
You look at the largest banks. They're trading at 10 to 12 times earnings. What's S& P 500 trading at? 20 to 25 times earnings? Why is that? And then we're just layering regulation on regulation on regulation. I don't think any of us here on the stage are opposed to strong, effective regulation. We want good, strong, effective regulation. But we also want to be able to compete in the marketplace and deliver a reasonable return to our shareholders.
If we don't have a model that can deliver a reasonable return to shareholders, you're not going to have capital coming into the industry, and then we're going to have a consolidation of the number of banks, which I think, On the long term is bad for banking.
Yeah, Brent's right. I mean, they're gonna be fewer of us. And if you erode the structural profitability of the industry, an industry which by most studies, consumers would say does a pretty good job that we offer free checking, we offer a Bank On certified product as well. But if you undermine the structural profitability of the industry, how are we supposed to deliver that?
So I think that it's going to drive more consolidation and it's going to limit the ability of the industry to continue to invest in technology. And so again, you have to think about unintended consequences. It is the cumulative effect of all of this.
Well, I'm going to say a couple of things. One is that the regulation is good. That is because it has had the effect of keeping out some who have a lot of money who don't have good intent. And we need to be mindful of that. So regulation has played a positive role in this whole process. And I've seen that firsthand and I won't call any names there. But what I would also say is to what Brent said, which is it's about capital. I talked about oxygen in a capitalistic society.
If we want banking to be a core component of the capitalistic society here in the U. S., we've got to attract human capital and talent. And that's why I'm very proud of what we do at ABA, even the emerging leaders. I was in a class or in a room with them yesterday, and I'd like all the emerging leaders stand while I'm still talking just so you can see the impact of the new leaders that are coming into banking. Sitting on this stage at some point in time, leading this industry.
And it's important that we have emerging leaders because we will not be sitting here very long is the best way I can describe that, Peter. And so as we think about regulation, I will tell you, we go back to Nashville. You and I believe, or Rob may have been on the stage. We talked about Basel III. And while that doesn't affect me for my size bank at 600 million today, I do believe it will have the impact on us. And so as vice chair Barr left the stage.
We talked about there is a need to understand the impact of that. What I am grateful in saying is that Chairman Powell did say that they're going to pause a little bit on this. And so the point I'm making is and want to make to this audience is our voices are being heard. Be sure you're doing what John just talked about. Being sure your voice is heard from Main Street where you are, whether that is in Mississippi, Alaska, Vermont, California, Arizona. We need all our voices cohesively.
Or shall I say, rolling the boat together? In a manner that is in unison. So when we walk over on the hill, or if we had the regulatory agencies, they are hearing the exact. Same message.
Going back to Brent's comment. It really is the cumulative impact. When you think about higher capital requirements, lower fee income, because traditional fees that we've charged for years are now under attack. They're no longer lawful. Or abusive. And and at the same time you're spending more to implements software and technology that's necessary to track 1071, and and interchange revenue is also under attack. So it's coming from all different directions.
It's not just one regulatory agency that's writing a bunch of rules. It's a bunch of agencies writing a bunch of rules, and it's not coordinated. So it's coming at us all and it really does make bankers wonder whether or not they have a profitable future.
Evan sparks here again, I want to take a quick moment to thank our sponsor for this episode. This podcast is brought to you by R&T Deposit Solutions, a leading provider of cash sweep, balance sheet management and deposit funding solutions founded in 1974 R&T leverage his deep industry knowledge and a tech enabled platform to provide financial institutions with flexible cash management solutions, including access to millions of dollars in reciprocal deposits.
Visit their website for more information at rnt.com. That's the letters R N T .com and thanks again to R&T Deposit Solutions for sponsoring this episode. And now back to the conversation with Peter.
Julie, let me follow up on one point there. Something that I know you've been I'm particularly passionate about, and you talked about it at your own bank, financial inclusion. You've moved into, to neighborhoods in, in your marketplace to try and reach as many people as possible. The way you can do that is because you generate revenue in other places that allow you to, to, to pay for that.
Can you talk a little bit more about that and the effect of something like Reg II the debit interchange cut that's been proposed?
Okay. So just about everybody in this country has a free checking account. Guess what? Checking accounts are not free. They it costs for us to generate statements. It costs for us to maintain them on our system. It costs for every single transaction that processes through that checking account. And we pay for that through interchange revenue. And or other fees for other services that we offer within our institution. We're trying to get people into the banking system.
We now cash checks for non customers. We also pay their bills for cash payments. So we're developing other products to bring people into the banking system and using the free checking account as an opportunity to broaden people's access to financial services. CRA, as a regulation, has as its goal home ownership, but there are a lot of financial steps that consumers need to take.
First of all, they need to be in a bank and they need to be bankable, and they need to learn how to use financial products to improve their life. So there's this large continuum that is now being made unprofitable business for us and it's going to make it very hard for people to actually access the products in our institution.
Brent, I want to give you the chance to talk about one other item that may be flying a little bit lower on the radar screen. You mentioned it to me backstage. Governance and a proposal at the F. D. I. C. That this has caught your attention.
You know, it sure has. And if you look at the comments letter comment letters about the F. D. I. C. Governance proposal, it is unbelievably strong against I think governance is, who doesn't believe in governance? To me, this proposal is the wolf dressed in sheep's clothing because it's governance. We all want strong governance. Strong governance is a good thing. What that looks like, the devil is in the details, and there are so many things in that proposal.
The one that really strikes me is that if you have a holding company and a bank, you could potentially have to have two entirely separate boards. I think the vast majority of holding company boards and the bank boards are the similar, the same individuals. And you could, because of conflict of interest, because it would no longer be independent based on this new governance standard proposal. Imagine that. Imagine trying to recruit directors.
The line is already blurring between what is the role and responsibility of management and the role and responsibility of the board of directors. In my mind, it's very clear the board is for oversight. Management is for setting strategy and execution. And then the board can bring them in. And those lines are blurring. We're getting it all the time. I don't know about other institutions. Our regulators want regular meetings with our board members. What do they know?
And pretty soon the board needs to be literally a part of management. So I think we need to strengthen those lines. I thought it was very, very insightful. The Council of State Regulators, they put out a letter in opposition. They were so strong to the FDIC proposal. I think they said, don't try to tweak this proposal, just withdraw it in its entirety.
All right, I'm gonna shift in our time remaining to not regulation, not even the current state of business, but the future. Tell me about your bank right now, what you're investing in, what you're excited about. And John, I'll begin with you as you, you just completed a merger in the process right now. As you look at, even with the regulatory challenges you're facing, some of the economic challenges, what, what, what has you excited each day when you go into the office?
Well, I am super excited. It was, it's really we're investing in people and technology, and what has me excited is despite all the noise, all the distraction, all the challenges, at the end of the day, we're, we're like almost all of us in this room. We're a real bank for real people. And we help people and we help communities. We provide services, we provide financing that's beneficial. And I think it's, it's fundamentally a noble profession.
I do not understand why we are in the crosshairs for kind of all of the political debate and we're being targeted, et cetera. But, but at the end of the day, we do a lot of good. I see it every day. The number of clients, people who come up to me saying, I love your bank. You do a great job. The people. It's really all about the people and the end. No matter the challenge, no matter what it is, it's all about the people.
And so the merger with American nationals is kind of the latest, greatest exciting thing. So that's what it's people business. We help people. We fundamentally do a lot of good. I hope people will remember that that don't really understand this industry.
Kenneth, let me ask you, what are you excited about?
Sure. I'm excited about the future. And it's the two topics that John just talked about, which is the people, human capital aspect of it, and the technology side of it. In fact, I share with our board, we've been doing this now for six plus years that we have to act and behave like a technology company in the logistics of moving money. That's a mantra at our board. It's a mantra across our business. And so having said that, we've gone to a completely digital core system.
We changed that in the midst of actually COVID. We got that done. I would say on time, not quite on the budget because the fees to unhook was a lot more than we budgeted. And I hope most of you can appreciate that joke. But when you look at the people side of it, Peter, I mean, I talked about the emerging leaders just a moment ago. We have one here, Helda Saad, who's on our team.
We actually about five, right at five years ago, stood up a, a At that time, I'm going to name it as it was, the Millennial Advisory Board. And the intent was, as I looked at the demographics of our customers, we were on the mature side, shall I say. And we wanted to be attractive to a younger base. And so we brought in a board of young entrepreneurs, et cetera, who would give us feedback while we also gave them leadership development opportunities and the opportunity to learn about banking.
And so I would tell you, if you look at the history of those team members, many of them have participated in what you would call shark tanks in our Metro Detroit area and won or been placed in those. And so we're very proud of that, but that's also the ethos we're trying to bring into our, into the bank.
So we're very proud about the people opportunity because we're going to need human capital to come and sit on this stage five years from now, 10 years from now, but also technology and being sure we're competitive with any other person or entity out there who wants to play in the financial services space.
Julie,
I think I'll just echo what Kenneth was saying is innovation has a lot of there's a lot of opportunity for us to become more efficient as institutions to deliver products and services easier. Better. We are going to have to dismantle a lot of the things that have been built up in the past as far as our operational processes so that we can deliver better on behalf of our consumers and and customers, but it is the people and the emerging leader program here at ABA has brought in.
Such rich talent so that we really have an optimism about about the future for our industry. People that really are passionate about their communities and doing well in the banking space, but doing well for others.
Yeah, right. I know we talked about resiliency for the industry over the past year. You've got a personal story of resiliency, and I know it's a message you shared with some of those emerging leaders. What's your outlook for the future, given what you've been through over the last year or so?
Yeah, . I, I could, I could go on for a while.
And, and not everyone of course knows your story, so. Yeah.
So for those of you that don't know about 14 months ago I was in a plane accident. The plane that went down and the person sitting from me to John passed on Impact, and I, I was left with not a bright outlook, and I'm here and before you. I'm so grateful. I am the luckiest guy in the world. I'm happy to have that debate with anyone. I'd said that before the plane accident because I do feel lucky because of what I get to do every day and who I get to do it with.
I look at this stage, look at the people I'm surrounded with and they make me better. So, so thank you very much. But, you know, resiliency is a choice. It's a choice for each of us. Stuff is going to happen. How are we going to overcome it? And that's what I love about the banking industry in the United States, right? I mean, in a lot of instances, it's David versus Goliath. Right? It's we're big enough to be relevant, small enough to be nimble, and let's figure it out.
And to me, that, that is resiliency. And, you know, back to the previous question, what, what excites me It's the passion. It's the caring that the teams have. Why do we do what we do? Because we want to create a better future. We want to create a better future for our clients. We want to create a better future for our employees, our teams. I'm a big believer you can't just sit back there and throw stones and pick apart everything that's wrong. We could talk all day long about what's wrong.
The question as leaders is what are we going to do about it? How are we stepping up? How are we personally, and how is our organization going to make a difference? And that's what has me really excited and to me that's resiliency is preparing. Okay, we think we know what's going to happen But you know what we're sure of is we're going to be wrong And so how are we going to adapt to that?
We've got 1200 bankers here in washington in person. We've got a whole host watching in the live stream what's your message to them both the folks in the room here and the folks at home about? Advocacy and getting involved and and I'll end with our chair and I'll begin here with John. We'll go down the line.
I think the message is, is simply, you know, people need to get engaged and don't just be a bystander. So whatever matters to you, do something to try to accomplish a, a better outcome. And to your point, Brent, don't just, don't just criticize. That's easy. That's weak. Leadership is really about taking a stand. You also need to be empathetic and try to understand the perspective of others. We could complain about regulations.
Part of why I try to understand what is the perspective of our, some of these regulations that are coming at us, you know, what is it that we're trying to accomplish? So get engaged, pay attention. Don't just be a bystander.
I would say be authentic. Live your values and then tell the story. Never go with just numbers. Nobody, numbers aren't going to save anything. Tell your story. Be engaged. Make a difference in your communities. Understand how your bankers are making a difference. Then tell the story. We have a great story to tell. And kind of by our nature, as bankers, we're humble. We want to take a back seat. We want to let others have the spotlight. That's where we're comfortable.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm telling you, we have to step forward. We have to go in the stoplight. We spotlight. We have to tell our story because if we don't tell our story in the absence of us, in the vacuum of us telling the story, you're going to have all these chicken littles telling everybody how bad things are. That's not the case. It is our responsibility. Our obligation is leaders to tell the story.
And a story, not just numbers, not just, Hey, you know, 87 percent of the people think that's great. Those are good. I appreciate those stats to have those in our back pocket, but we need to talk about what are we doing to help the lives of the people in our communities?
Kenneth?
Yes, Peter, I'll have to go back to finish my story. I said, and talked about the millennial advisory board. They came to me and said, Mr. Kelly, we want to rename ourselves. The word millennial now has a dirty connotation. So we, they renamed themselves actually the Next Gen Board. And the reason I bring that up is going to your point, Brent. As leaders, sometimes we have to listen with the two ears versus talk, sometimes with the one mouth.
And taking the message going forward as we talk about banking, meaning we really have to take a stand and look at how do we have a positive impact on the current situations. We talked about all the regulatory issues that are taking place. But united as a front, we can certainly row the boat together on this topic.
Julie,
I'll just reiterate what's been said here. We're here in D. C. And and we're coming from all of our districts and we're we're here to bring the message of what the experience is for our consumers on the ground, for our customers, for what we're doing for our industry in our community. We're actually where the rubber meets the road. And getting that message here and talking about what the regulations impact is on that consumer.
How they're going to experience that 1071 asking 80 questions of a new applicant. How is that going to make it easier for someone to start their business? For someone to buy a home and do all the things that we actually as an industry support. So again, telling our story and making sure that we're connecting with people here so that they see what their work here in D. C. does to the experience at home.
We've got just a minute or so left here. I'm gonna surprise you guys with one last question because I always like asking this to bankers. Tell me a story. I don't need a name, but a customer, an individual or a business customer that you, your institution touched in some way this year that made a difference. A personal story that you shared in the office or you heard in the office that made you feel good about what you do. And I'm letting you all think.
Julie, I'm going to start with you this time and see if you've got one.
Sure, there was a a developer ended up buying a buying a building in a city that hadn't had a new building constructed in over 60 years. It is now market rate units that are sold out all to low to moderate income individuals. And it's robust and the valuation when it was imagined was at 7 million and then now the valuation is at 12 million. So creating equity and putting it in people's pocket, that's what we do.
Great. We've got a customer in Minneapolis who's in the Mall of America. It's just outside of Nordstrom's. He actually got burned out on Lake Street as part of the unrest associated with George Floyd's murder. And had to sell clothing out of the trunk of his car. And so we recently did some work with him, got a loan for him, and he's now open and running shop there inside of the Mall of America. So if you get a chance to go to Minneapolis Twin Cities, go by and visit and buy something.
Great. Brent?
It's a customer, just a consumer customer. I think they have 1, 200 in their checking account. They had some fraud that occurred on their account. They reached out to us and the same day they reached out to us, we said, We're sorry this has happened to you. It, you know, fraud is prevalent everywhere. Here's all the money back into your account. Same day. We'll investigate it. We'll take care of it. She reached out to me. She wrote a letter.
She's like Brent never in my life have I felt like my bank has had my back. That's what we're about. Why not give our customers the benefit of the doubt? Sure. There's bad actors that will take advantage of those are the minority. The majority are people like this. Okay. Find woman that said, You know what? All I want is somebody that believes in me,
John, you get the last word.
I'm thinking of a not for so many stories, not for profit that provides affordable housing, and they reached out in the end and said, We couldn't have done this without you. It's your team's creativity, devotion. You know, thank you for working with us. This will make a difference in people's lives. You know, to my point, that's what we do. This industry does a lot of good. People need to stay focused on that.
John, Brent, Kenneth, Julie, thank you, the four of you, the leadership you provided ABA as well, and for sharing your stories here.
Thanks for listening and thanks again to R&T Deposit Solutions for sponsoring this episode. We'll be back with you again very soon.