Testimonials

IntraFi can be so helpful to banks in terms of their liability management. It can help them attract and maintain their deposits, typically from their local customers, and it can help them earn fee income in addition. I think one of the great things about it is [that] it helps community banks, particularly, compete with the largest banks for deposits and compete with money market mutual funds. And so this is something that's so important to community banks in terms of having the money they need to lend in their communities.

Having access to the kind of scale that IntraFi provides us with is why our partnership is so successful. The ability to access large amounts of funding so quickly is essential. We have also been able to use IntraFi’s solutions to access funding on good terms as far as interest rates which is very important to the bank. IntraFi excels in customer service and responsiveness making doing business with them easy.

The ACT Deposit Program offers a streamlined approach for providing essential deposits to our member banks serving their communities. This initiative empowers our members to facilitate homeownership, business growth, and financial stability, contributing to job creation and the overall vitality of communities across America.

We signed up for ICS for three key reasons. First and foremost, it fills a need of our customers by providing them with flexible funds that are eligible for FDIC insurance. Second, it lets us keep those funds on our balance sheet, which gives us the dollars to lend into our communities. Finally, we have been long-time users of other [aspects of the product]. We and our customers have come to trust the quality and professionalism of [IntraFi].

Half of our members rely on [IntraFi’s] services to attract deposits so they can make loans supporting community development in some of the most underserved urban neighborhoods and rural communities in the country. On average, the community development banks attract reciprocal deposits at four times the level of other community banks. That translates into loans to small businesses, loans for mortgages and home improvement, loans for revitalization projects - loans that otherwise would not be made.

A valuable partnership means helping each other succeed, and IntraFi allows us to do so. Their reciprocal offering enables us to provide our customers access to millions in FDIC insurance while growing our deposit base. We are proud to provide a solution for our customers and bank with IntraFi’s services.

In stark contrast to listing service deposits, reciprocal deposits help a bank build franchise value. Quite simply, reciprocal deposits tend to be large, lower-cost, in-market deposits and, as such, offer greater potential for opportunity and efficiency. For this reason, many banks are replacing at least a portion of their listing service deposits with reciprocal deposits.

ACT is really an expansion of the funding pool and of the relationships that drive success at MDIs and CDFIs. It's a long-term play, not a short-term gap-filler,

As other institutions started to become more aggressive in raising deposit rates, ICS and CDARS made it easy to accommodate rate-sensitive customers on a case-by-case basis without cannibalizing our other deposits.

I was told awhile ago that I’d be the last president here - that the bank would have to sell due to regulatory pressures and constraints on earnings. To survive, we needed to grow. In a perfect world, you use core deposits; but core deposits and the loan demand sometimes don’t flow at the same time. So we use [IntraFi] to fill in the gaps. It allows us to leverage the capital we have to grow.

With reciprocal deposits, we can confidently accept large deposits from our customers.

Because we are a member of the [IntraFi] network, we have an opportunity to generate fee income on deposits we are not using for lending when loan demand is slack.

Best quality, in my eyes, is their responsiveness. Excellent customer service.

[Reciprocal deposits] have been a key driver for us in the last several years. We’ve been able to drive the wholesale brokered deposits down and substitute [them] with [reciprocal deposits]. The big difference that I see, in addition to just sheer volume, is the pricing. Wholesale pricing is a lot higher. You can drive and price these deposits the way your market [commands] and the way you would your other pricing decisions.

Unlike its competitors, [IntraFi] doesn’t compete with us for our customers. We own our customer relationships. We set our rates. [IntraFi] crafts its services from a banker’s perspective. Head to toe, [IntraFi] is all about community banks. The company’s services level the playing field, helping us to better compete with much larger players.

Administratively, IntraFi made it really easy for us. The whole process was so quick and seamless. And every time I call IntraFi, whoever I speak with is terrific.

One of the most powerful aspects of our relationship with [IntraFi] is our ability to attract depositors who believe what we believe - believe that placing capital in an institution that is focused on making a difference in the community is a worthwhile practice. But they want to do so with a fair rate, without additional risk. [IntraFi] has provided, if you will, a wonderful tool for us to fund the expansion of the bank. As we grow the scale of the bank, what we do is grow our capability, our capacity, to be able to lend back into the community. And that’s what it’s really all about, so that we can lend back into the community and really make a difference with these underlying businesses.

Love the availability of the marketing materials [for financial institutions to use for free when marketing to end customers].