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  • Comment Detail

  • Date: 10/27/22
    First Name: Kevin
    Last Name: Bullard
    Email: kbullard@welchstatebank.com
    Organization Type: other
    Organization: Welch State Bank

  • Comment

    The Welch State Bank is a Community Bank located in NE Oklahoma. We have been a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka since early 1990's. We currently have $365 Million in total assets with 5 locations and are in the process of adding a sixth. Our primary focus is agriculture real estate and 1-4 family lending. When we first became a member of the home loan bank, we would regularly attend their Annual Management Conference. We nearly always came home with ideas that we could implement that enabled us to be more competitive in our markets, and provide services to our customers that would otherwise not been able to do. One of our first ventures in to accessing advances came from an idea that was fostered from one of the management conferences we attended. We began taking down advances to fund pools of fixed rate loans, a product we had been reluctant to offer in the past. By working with the FHLbank and using their analytical tools we were able to match the advances to the loan pools to effectively manage the interest rate risk and provide more fixed rate borrowing opportunities for our customer's, which allowed us to continue to grow.

    Over the years we have taken advantage of many of the products offered by the FHLbank. We currently use Letters of Credit to secure public deposits. We actively use the Mortgage Partnership Finance Program, which allows us to sell loans to the FHLBank and are able to retain servicing and keep personal contact with our customers. This product has enabled our bank to be voted The Best Place to get a mortgage in Ottawa County 17 years in a row. In 2018 we started using the Homeownership Set Aside Program to provide customers with down payment assistance grants for home purchases. It allowed us to help 43 customers achieve their dream of homeownership that might never have been able to purchase a home without it.

    We currently are not big users of FHLbank advances, but having the capacity to borrow, with the wide array of collateral pledging options provided, it is extremely important in managing our liquidity. It is one of the major tools in our liquidity planning process.

    Having a regional FHLbank has been extremely valuable to our enterprise. By being able to attend conferences in our region we forged valuable relationships with the FHLbank staff. They are very knowledgeable and understand the needs of bankers in our part of the country and are continually working on products to support the banks in our region.