US Treasury Dept. Awards Spring Bank Top Bank Enterprise Award

BRONX, N.Y. - Nov. 26, 2013 - PRLog -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) has announced that Spring Bank, a Bronx based commercial lender, was awarded the highest possible Bank Enterprise Award for its support of affordable housing development through small business loans, project investments and commercial real estate loans in the Bronx, Brooklyn and the broader New York City area. Executives of Spring Bank noted that the Bank is both the smallest New York bank and one of only four to receive the coveted award.

”We are thrilled to receive this recognition of our deep commitment to New York’s small businesses and our hardworking neighbors.  Our investments in distressed communities in New York are central to our mission as a community bank,” said Brian Blake, Spring Bank’s Community Reinvestment Act Officer.

In a press release, CDFI Fund Director Donna J. Gambrell noted, “As past awardees have demonstrated, these organizations will invest their awards back into distressed communities, supporting small businesses, affordable housing, and essential services.”

The BEA Program awardees were selected after a comprehensive review of applications received by the CDFI Fund from financial institutions across the nation. The activities that qualify for these institutions for BEA Program awards occur in census tracts where at least 30 percent of the population lives at or below the national poverty level and where the unemployment rate is 1.5 times above the national average. For a full list of winners see 2013 BEA Program Award List

About Spring Bank

Founded in 2007 to serve New York City’s underbanked, Spring Bank is an FDIC-insured, independently owned community bank headquartered in the Bronx, New York. In December 2012, the Bank’s second branch opened in the Harlem community of Manhattan. Since its founding, a primary mission of the Bank has been to provide the products, services and education that enable low-wealth customers to benefit from mainstream banking.  Spring Bank is equally committed to stimulating and supporting small business growth through deposit and loan products. The majority of Spring Bank lending goes to businesses in the five boroughs, and more than half of all loans go to small businesses. The Bank provides a wide range of innovative deposit and lending services, many with superior rates. Spring Bank’s dedicated SBA loans division is one of the busiest in NYC, with the Bank recently being rated among the 100 most active SBA 7(a) lenders in the country.

About the BEA Program

The BEA Program awards FDIC-insured depository institutions for making investments in the most distressed communities throughout the nation. The awards also help banks and thrifts offset some of their risk and meet capital ratio requirements. The BEA Program is multiplying financial institutions’ impacts and generating greater economic opportunity for those with the least access to financial products and services.

About the CDFI Fund

Since its creation in 1994, the CDFI Fund has awarded more than $1.7 billion to CDFIs, community development organizations, and financial institutions through the CDFI Program, the Bank Enterprise Awards program, and the Native American CDFI Assistance program. In addition, the CDFI Fund has allocated $33 billion in tax credit authority to community development entities through the New Markets Tax Credit Program.