Industry sign banking louisiana presentation online
funding for the production of folks is provided in part by the friends of lpb it has been proven now wherever there's a minority bank minority enterprise will grow and i think we've seen it since 1972 the growth of minority enterprise here in our city extended out throughout the state of louisiana as well when other business and professional people throughout the south and for that matter throughout the united states found out that we could do it well they decided that maybe we can do it too and since that time we have had two other flight control savings alone associations to open in louisiana hello everyone i'm rob hinton and i'm genevieve stewart today on folks we'll be taking a look at minority-owned financial institutions we'll be focusing on two in particular liberty bank in new orleans and first federal savings and loan in baton rouge we'll also be talking with two members of the federal reserve system that and more today on [Music] over the folks [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] everybody [Music] just plain old today on folks we'll be visiting first federal savings and loan in baton rouge as we turn our attention to minority-owned financial institutions we'll be telling you about the role they play in louisiana's financial community and how they help black neighborhoods now later on in the program rob will be telling us about first federal but first we'd like to turn our attention to one of the state's leading minority-owned banks that's liberty bank in new orleans ten years ago liberty bank in new orleans opened its doors with a handful of employees and garnered two million dollars in deposits a modest sum by banking standards experiencing a growth rate of 20 per year liberty now boasts 50 million dollars in total assets from 15 000 depositors a minority bank was obviously an idea whose time had come as bank president alden mcdonald explained it has been proven now wherever there's a minority bank minority enterprise will grow and i think we've seen it since 1972 the growth of minority enterprise here in our city extended out throughout the state of louisiana as well minority banking really got started in the 1870s with the freeman's bank out of the north they had 37 branches around the united states with one branch really being located here in the new orleans area through history the banks started falling off one by one not only minority banks but majority banks as well and when you look at that period of time the 1880s and we're in the 1980s now it's very interesting to note uh history repeating itself even during that period of time you had 119 black legislators in the state of louisiana you had three black lieutenant governors you had black that was secretary of education for the state of louisiana the treasury for the state of louisiana was black during a period of time and you had a lot of black entrepreneurship that owners of cotton mills and steamship companies and that's what minority banking could do today could do the same thing it did back in the 1880s and i think it's very important for people to realize that a minority bank may be a small bank but the amount of participation it can cause a community is unthinkable liberty bank is a member of the national bankers association the mba is the trade organization representing the nation's 100 minority-owned banks by networking within the association and using the leverage of their combined four billion dollar assets locally owned minority banks are then placed in a very advantageous position aldon mcdonald is also president of the national bankers association we like to think of ourselves as a large bank because we're really part of the national bankers association which is made up of some 100 plus banks all around the country representing employment force in excess of five thousand representing over a million and a half depositors with total resources of some four billion dollars so we're not really a small bank in the sense of what liberty bank size is because we draw on the resources of our associates in other parts of the country and this is why we're able to serve corporate america corporate america views us as a four billion dollar institution and not a small 50 million dollar bank what is the nba stance on attracting large white corporate depositors the purpose of the nba is to collectively sell the national bankers association and the minority banking community the national banking association and the corporate advisory board will encourage other fortune 500 companies to do the same and the reason the the big push or the big support from corporate america is that corporate america has found out that it's really good business to do business with minority banks it completes an economic cycle that doesn't exist normally in our communities and if you take the balance of trade with foreign countries it's necessary to have that trade go back to that community and go back to that country in order to keep the country economically viable well the same theory holds true on the domestic side if you continue to take the resources from the minority community and not find a vehicle to put it back into the minority community eventually that community is going to die economically in 1983 alone the nba made presentations reaching 250 major corporate treasurers mcdonald says at present 200 of the fortune 500 companies are conducting business with minority banks to give you an example aetna life insurance company we're a lead bank for one of their lines of credits and in our line of credit we service some 42 other minority banks out of that line of credit that will have aetna to only do business or deal with one bank but yet have a relationship with 42 other banks around the country so it's been working it's good for minority banks it's good for corporate america and it's good for america because that's what we're all about keeping the entire system economically viable in the past two years the total spectrum of banking has changed with deregulations you now have brokerage firms and savings and loans who are conducting some limited banking services what do you foresee in the future this will mean to the black banking industry the minority banking community throughout the country should be at somewhat of a competitive edge and the reason for that is because we've been really servicing a niche in the marketplace that now the non-minority banks are attempting to get and once you have the niche in the marketplace and you service them well and you keep up with changing times you should survive liberty bank now has three attractive branches its 72 employees are well trained to operate the bank's top-notch equipment liberty like other minority banks has created a progressive business environment which in turn supports the financial development of minority communities that were traditionally stagnant segments of the economy that's part of liberty's success our success is really from the people in our community people in our community have supported us tremendously over the 10 years and i think on the other hand liberty has given back tenfold what the community has given to us so it's a combination of those two things where the bank supports the community and the community supports the bank and the people in our community has been tremendous with the support that they have given us over the 10 years that we've been in business the building you see behind me was once first federal savings and loan of scotlandville the man who is probably most responsible for first federal's existence was the late dr felton clark you see back in the early 50s dr clark who was president of southern university at the time felt blacks weren't getting their fair share of the housing market after meeting with a group of business and professional leaders in the baton rouge area it was decided that a black controlled savings and loan would be the best thing for the black community hence on november 1st 1956 after a lot of discussion research and red tape first federal savings and loan opened its doors and subscriptions from the community that's two hundred ninety one thousand dollars representing about twelve hundred customers now back in those early days the largest sum of money first federal could lend was fifteen thousand dollars but today first federal's assets total better than fifty million dollars and it has become a pillar of strength to the black community in baton rouge it's not been for us many people would not have been able to have homes to have businesses you can think back 27 years ago you could probably come up with one or two subdivisions for black people now they're scattered throughout the city of baton rouge to parish of east baton rouge and first federal had a lot to do with that the first black savings and loan was established 93 years ago yet first federal savings in loan of scotlandville was the first black owned savings and loan in louisiana and the deep south other business and professional people throughout the south and for that matter throughout the united states found out that we could do it well they decided that maybe we can do it too and uh since that time we have had two other flight control savings and loan associations to open in louisiana in state of louisiana one is a savings and loan that opened about 1963 down in new orleans that's called united federal and one that just opened on the 10th of this month had a grant open grand opening 10th of this month by you federal so there are three of us in the state of louisiana right now not only is first federal the first black savings alone in the deep south but it is also one of the largest in the country we have grown to be the seventh largest blight control financial institution not blanching institutions the seventh flight control savings and loan association in the united states now we're talking about los angeles chicago new york philadelphia washington dc large cities and we are right here just off the southern university's campus and we are number seven and we're quite proud of that fact and where first federal has seen a lot of success like many of us it has also experienced some pretty tough years we had to start off behind so when times got hard and many of the savings and loan associations just could not make it because the economy got completely out of control at one time and that hasn't been over two years ago interest rates went up to as much as 21 uh not only black people but many families throughout the united states were priced out of the housing market they were just families who could not get housing and not only that but many of the associations had to do one of two things because their bottom line was beginning to get red and red and red and red many of them had to either merge with other associations they were strong or they had to just go out of business i'm happy to say that face federal was able to to weather that storm and we feel that we are financially sound and that we will continue to be financially sound tell us why someone should put their money in black owned or controlled savings loans such as first federal number one we we we we are proud of the fact that that we say we are black but number two and the most important thing about it is that we can do just as much for anybody right up like in the savings and loan business as anybody else can we have the same 100 000 worth of federal insurance that all other savings and loans associations have we think we have good management in fact um uh just about every day someone tells us that uh we are proud to be a part of face federal and uh i can proudly say that 27 years after we after we got started we have at least 40 percent of our depositors uh are white believe it or not because they're coming where they can get good service they're coming where they're just out of number but they are named and and we give them real service and we believe that when you have good people with a good organization and you give good service that's the key to success and we feel that we have reached that we have found that key how does the community benefit from your institution the community the community benefits tremendously because as you know looking back over our economics we are told that the dollar rolls over seven times in the community and you when you think about a 50 million association and when you think about the number of construction loans that we have had throughout throughout the community and the amount of money that was placed there and you take those dollars and you roll them over seven times you can see how it has helped the community economically as well as financially are your investments primarily in the black community primarily when we first started it was right now as i say we have grown to a point and we believe that the economy has gotten to a point where the financial institutions money is not looked at as black money or white money but green money and uh we feel that the entire community as long as we can render service uh that we'll we'll get we are getting our share i put it like that we're getting our fair share of the money uh from the majority as well as the minority community uh we started off to help the black community at the minority community we're still doing that but we have spread it since then and that is the reason we believe that our success has been so good because we have not just concentrated in the black community even though we have not lost our sights on helping the black community get housing uh throughout but we are also helping the entire community and we would we feel quite fortunate about that what does the future hold for first federal i at the future price federal uh particularly for his federal i think we're look we are in a very unique position uh because right here in the scotlandville area we're just off of southern university's campus there's quite a payroll up there uh to the south of us is lsu that's quite a payroll there we have petrochemical plants up and down the the mississippi river uh i think we're in a unique city in a unique position and i see nothing but face federal continuing to move we now shift our attention to the federal reserve system the central banking system of this country the federal reserve works closely with the u.s treasury department and other federal agencies to help establish money and banking conditions that will best suit the economic growth of the country now there are 12 districts that make up the federal reserve system the district which louisiana is a part of is based in atlanta georgia two louisianians who are members of the atlanta district governing body are here with us today to talk about the federal reserve system they are horatio thompson and dr roosevelt steptoe gentlemen welcome to folks thank you in your capacities with the federal reserve board your recommendations help to ultimately set the interest rates for louisiana banks that's a tremendous responsibility do you ever feel torn in that your decisions will ultimately help the economy as a whole but may not be in the best interest of minorities and the immediate situation that's tepto yes well one does have his own philosophical orientation but one has to realize that the federal reserve system is concerned with monetary policy which reflects itself in terms of the rate of interest and that does seem to be a conflict sometimes between the rate of interest and the rate of unemployment so i do tend to worry about the rate of unemployment being high at the same time the federal reserve system focuses on the interest rate and raising the rate of interest so that there may be more unemployment in the system than we would desire but because their responsibility has to do with controlling the rate of interest i think that they pursue that and hope that some other policy fiscal policy will put more people back to work mr thompson yes uh we're concerned with with the whole economy and of course the way actually we don't set the interest rate i think that should be made clear that the interest we set the interest as charged to the member banks the discount window that we loaned the money to the banks and of course ultimately that rate gets down to the consumer and of course it's two or three points higher when it gets down to consume
and uh i'm concerned i know dr steptoe's always concerned how it's going to affect minority groups but we not only do we represent minorities we also represent business labor and then the consumer and we have to think of how it's going to affect the overall economy higher interest rates helped to control spiraling inflation but this tightened the money market and caused many minorities to be laid off consequently some civil rights leaders feel that the economy was brought under control at the expense of minorities how do you react to this well i think that the economy was brought under control at the well which caused some sacrifice on the part of all americans minorities included it just so happened that i think that a greater proportion of the minority population did suffer unemployment and that is the price that we had to pay because of the kinds of policies we pursued but that seems to be true no matter which way the economy moves that there are more minorities in the unemployment ranks and of course it goes even farther than that when we hear these reports in atlanta of closed down factors the businesses bankruptcies higher bankruptcies are higher than they've ever been which means it's not only minorities businesses are real estate people all of them are suffering we take our share of it but it's generally always just a large group of us that are complaining about how interest rates affects our affect our liability currently the louisiana prime interest rate at banks is 11.5 percent what's ahead for interest rates in the future well if we have to make predictions i would say that we will be in possibly for a slight increase in the next two three months and then gradually i think interest rates will go down again that's that's the way most of us feel in the federal reserve system we're very concerned about the high deficit that we have in government and we're hoping that that will be brought under control mr volcker has just consistently stated that that's one of the main objectives is to bring down this government deficit he preaches that every time he appeared before congressional committees and paul volcker is the chairman of the federal reserve board the whole entire governing body if the interest rates go up dr steptoe how will this affect unemployment well i tend to think and i think history will prove it correct that as the rates of interest go up it tends to affect certain industries more than others such as the construction industry and other industries and we tend to have a decrease in activities in those industries and that means that unemployment in those industries would tend to go up so that i expect the rate of interest to just as mr thompson said just go up slightly over the next six to seven months level off and then begin to come down and i believe that we can do that without any significant increase in the unemployment rate because of the confidence that people have now in the economy they believe it's going to move forward and plant and businessmen will begin to expand about 40 percent of the welfare and food stamp recipients are minorities these programs have been severely cut in recent years due to the deficit spending you mentioned earlier can social program spending be reinstituted to its previous levels and the economy continue to strengthen well strangely if the economy continues to strengthen i believe that that is the greatest possibility for these social programs to be reinstituted and expanded upon because federal revenues were falling as the economy moved into a recession as it moves into recovery period revenues will increase and therefore we won't have that conflict between guns and butter i think we can have more of both so i think that we could have more social programs and reduce the deficit if the economy continues to move to full employment of course you know on your social security program in particular it's been revamped and reorganized and there's hopes that with the new reorganization that we can generate more revenue because it actually was just about to go bankrupt see and uh just as like stepped will say with increased revenues possibly they can increase your social programs because my interest is is in actually getting more people back to work and i just feel that this all of this uh help that we give people it doesn't it really to me it's more degrading than anything else i must prefer people to get back to work and when they're living rather than get help and welfare now maybe that sounds a lot conservative to you no it certainly doesn't it sounds like you are a very concerned member of the federal reserve and that's good to hear on the world monetary market the dollar is stronger now than it has ever been in recent years and that's wonderful but how does that translate into everyday bread and butter economics for the average american family well let me just say that we have several sectors in this economy that are dependent upon exports in order to maintain its level of output and employment and the strengthened dollar means that our goods and services here cost more overseas and that will decrease our exports and which means then that such industries as the agricultural industry depending upon exports will have to reduce its uh output somewhat so that that tends to translate into fewer jobs for americans and of course there are some benefits but in terms of the way i think it affects the overall economy it would mean fewer jobs overseas i mean for us at home for the average viewer looking in what can they do personally to help the economy improve mr thompson that's a hard question average view would you say it's buying american made products yeah that is one thing but one of the one of the things that i think that we have to be concerned about as americans is productivity one thing that everyone can do is to be sure that whatever he does he does it the best so because the quality of our output affects the purchase of those goods overseas and also the productivity the amount of goods and services we produce per hour per day per week per person affects the price of those goods overseas so one of the reason why we're having so much difficulty selling our goods overseas is because of the high price of them and some people relate that to the cost of those goods at home and the cost of them of these goods would be affected by the productivity per person so the quality and the price of those goods can be determined to some extent by what we as americans put into those goods and services as we produce them our program for this week thanks for watching next week on folks we'll be taking a look at why our children can't read and the increasing prominence of vocational education we hope you'll join us then until next time so long [Music] funding for the production of folks is provided in part by the friends of lpb