a community bank in Kansas City, MO, providing innovative lending products
While we often stress the importance of banks making more traditional, wealth-building loans like small business and housing loans, there are also many banks in the US working to provide innovative and original loan products to serve their community’s capital needs. Lead Bank in Kansas City, MO, is one of those banks, and they’ve received a lot of attention regarding their Civic Contractor Funding program. This gives smaller local businesses the capital they need to take big contracting jobs from the city, which require a lot resources.
One such contracting group, Axiom Construction Group, is a minority-owned construction company of just 19 builders who were able to take on the job of constructing a new terminal at Kansas City Airport. This would not have been possible without funding from Lead Bank which allowed them to buy materials and pay for accelerated staffing. The arrangement also allows the city its typical extended term to pay for large-project construction costs. Unconventional lending products like this one may not show up in Lead Bank’s lending statistics, but they make all the difference for smaller contracting groups in the city.
Lead Bank was chartered in 1928 as Garden City Bank, a one-branch bank focused mainly on farm lending, but since their ownership change 15 years ago, they’ve been re-thinking the way banking can be done to truly fulfill the credit needs of their community. We hope to see them create and use even more creative lending products as they continue to grow.
While we would encourage them to open more locations in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, as none of their current locations are, it’s clear they still invest in these neighborhoods; about half of their housing lending goes to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. We would also encourage them to promote more BIPOC to executive positions, even while applauding that many of their board and executives are women. Regardless, Lead Bank is still a great banking option for anyone living in the Kansas City area.
Lead Bank is a member of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values. They have both online and mobile banking options, so check out their website for more information or to move your money there today.