Meridian Star
Two local banks to receive federal grants
Staff report
Two Meridian banks, as well as a third in DeKalb, will each receive more than $450,000 in federal funding to support loans and investments in economically distressed areas.
Citizens National Bank and Great Southern Bank, both in Meridian, and The Commercial Bank, located in DeKalb, are among 35 financial institutions in Mississippi slated to receive $451,025 in Bank Enterprise Award Program grants, U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith announced on Friday.
Altogether, $19 million will be awarded to four dozen predominantly rural Mississippi banks and financial institutions to support loans and investments in economically-distressed areas, she said.
The Bank Enterprise Award Program grants, or BEA grants, were approved through the U.S. Department of the Treasury Community Development Financial Institutions Fund for fiscal year 2023.
“The BEA Program is important to Mississippi because it provides another avenue to credit and loans that other financial institutions wouldn’t necessarily offer to small businesses or start-ups in more rural or distressed areas,” Hyde-Smith said. “These resources will be put to work specifically to support job creation and retention in areas that need it most.”
Hyde-Smith, a member of the Senate Community Development Finance Caucus, has actively used her position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to promote the BEA Program and CDFI Fund. During the summer, she co-sponsored Senate Bill 2099, or the Supporting Community Lenders Act, introduced by U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.
The CDFI Fund provides BEA Program awards to FDIC-insured depository institutions committed to increasing their investments in CDFIs or in their own lending, investing, or service activities in distressed communities, which are defined as those where at least 30 percent of residents have incomes below the national poverty level and where the unemployment rate is at least 1.5 times the national unemployment rate.