Waterloo native ReShonda Young, co-founder of the Bank of Jabez based in Waterloo, recently discussed the highly anticipated bank’s progress with Black Iowa News. The bank will be a certified Community Development Financial Institution, which plans to promote home ownership and economic growth in underserved communities and combat the racial wealth gap. Young is analyzing options to buy an existing bank, or build one., she said. The Bank of Jabez is slated to open sometime this year. Read the Q&A with Young.
Q&A with ReShonda Young, co-founder of the Bank of Jabez
Black Iowa News: Do you consider the Bank of Jabez Black-owned or Black-led?
ReShonda Young: “We are shooting for Black-owned. It will be Black-led, but we’re shooting for Black-owned and led.”
Black Iowa News: Was the Prayer of Jabez something you had familiarity with before the bank name came to you?
ReShonda Young: “I had read through the book and materials back in 2003. It’s been a long time . . . I had kind of forgotten. When it came to me, it sparked my remembrance.”
Black Iowa News: In some of the stories I’ve read about the functions and features that will differentiate the Bank of Jabez from existing banks, it talked about an “intentional focus” on assisting underserved communities. Is there some more detail you can bring to that?
ReShonda Young: “So one of the things that we’re looking to do is a second chance Homeownership Program so if for whatever reason a person isn’t ready to buy, whether they just don’t have the savings that they need to make sure they can upkeep a home or if they need to get some things paid off, we’ll have a second chance program where — if they’re open — we’ll go through a program where we actually help them address those issues and then have them reapply afterwards because we know they’ll be in position. If they go through the program as designed, they’ll be in a position to buy. Normally you just get the no. We’re setting up to try and get people to that yes.”
Black Iowa News: Some new banks don’t even have tellers anymore, and there’s all this technology. Are there certain things you’re thinking of in terms of technology?
ReShonda Young: “That’s one of the things that we are focused on because things are changing so fast. And what’s the norm right now is not going to be the norm in three to five years. And so, there’s a heightened focus on making sure that we are collaborating with the technology firms that can keep us moving forward. That’s been one of the things that we’ve noticed — has been one of the downfalls with the Black banks — is that their technology has just not kept up with what it needed to. It’s just too hard to compete. Also, we will have a footprint in terms of a physical footprint because there are still people who want to walk into a bank, they want to actually walk in and see somebody face-to-face. So we will have that, but we won’t have a big focus on having dozens of people in a physical branch because we know that that’s dying out. And if we look at making sure that we’re serving people so we will have it but also maintaining low cost. We won’t have a huge physical footprint where we’re paying millions of dollars for a building where we could be paying that money out to people as dividends on their shares and higher interest rates on their account.”
Black Iowa News: Have you announced the name of your CEO and board yet?
ReShonda Young: “We have not. We’re still on the CEO search. I have the person that I really want but they have to go through FDIC approval, FBI background checks. We have not announced anyone yet. Same thing with the board.”
Black Iowa News: Do you have a target announcement date?
ReShonda Young: “We would like to be able to announce by the end of May.”
Black Iowa News: When is the Bank of Jabez slated to open?
ReShonda Young: “We’re still looking at sometime this year. With us trying to negotiate a bank purchase, a lot of it depends on those negotiations and then how long it takes the regulators to approve that purchase. If the purchase actually happens we’re looking at the third quarter sometime, if we end up not being able to purchase and then just going the new bank route, it’ll probably be early fourth quarter probably, late third or early fourth. That’s what our timeline is. I’m curious to see if things have slowed down any from what the regulators had originally told us since the bank failures have happened. I’m not nervous about our standing because of that. I’m just concerned about the regulators and where their time to focus is at.”
Black Iowa News: What else would you want Black Iowans in particular to know about the Bank of Jabez that either hasn’t been published yet or is something you’ve wanted to share that hasn’t gotten out?
ReShonda Young: “I don’t think it’s anything new, but I think it’s still good to say: We’re still looking for investors for the bank — especially for Black investors . . . because if we want to make sure that this is a Black-owned bank — Black people have to invest.”
“Some of the Black churches are looking to contribute, but we still need more because we have quite a few in our white community who are investing . . . I’m always just trying to encourage people to reach out and contact me about what it looks like to actually invest.”
Black Iowa News: How should people contact you to invest?
ReShonda Young: “Reshonda@bankofjabez.com.”
Black Iowa News: When you say investors, in my brain I pictured a little grandma reaching into her little secret hiding place to get her stash of dollars. Will small contributors help, or are you talking more about people with substantial funds?
ReShonda Young: “The small contributions help as well. We have a Givebutter link on our site for those smaller contributions. Our thing was if we want to really model what we talked about — we talked about building generational wealth, we talked about encouraging people to invest — we knew that asking our community for $50,000 was going to steer us away from our community owning this bank, and so we know that there are people who can do $5,000. So we lowered that bar to five in terms of being like a founding organizer . . . instead of $50,000, which would be normal.”
Black Iowa News: Where can people donate on your website?
ReShonda Young: “For Givebutter, it’s under Support Us. But for the $5,000 or more investment, that’s where we get into more personal conversations, and there’s documents for people to read through about what it means to be an organizer and founder of the bank.”
