What others are saying
Testimonials
What’s happening in the industry today can have an impact on your business tomorrow. We’re here to provide the information you need and the insights you want from people you can trust. Come back often as we update frequently.
What Bankers Say
Community banking is still vibrant, and it’s made more vibrant because of the tools we have at our disposal, such as those provided by IntraFi.
With great success, we are selling ICS to our large-deposit clients as a retention vehicle, as well as using ICS to lower cost of funds and attract new deposit business.
Reciprocal deposits help us better manage our balance sheet. We can more easily determine what to do with excess liquidity and easily follow through on those decisions which lowers our cost of funds and increases our profitability. Most importantly, reciprocal deposits give us another way to further our support for our communities.
The resources and the individuals and the integrity of the organization are above reproach. There’s never been a question that’s gone unanswered. Whenever we've had challenging times as an organization, they’ve been by our side.
[IntraFi] wants to serve us. It’s all about the relationship.
In stark contrast to listing service deposits, reciprocal deposits help a bank build franchise value. Quite simply, reciprocal deposits tend to be large, lower-cost, in-market deposits and, as such, offer greater potential for opportunity and efficiency. For this reason, many banks are replacing at least a portion of their listing service deposits with reciprocal deposits.
With ICS, we compete by having the opportunity to offer a valued product that offers security to our depositors who want to earn interest. A community bank may be well-known in the community but often must compete with the global banks that may have more notoriety and the perception of greater financial strength.
As other institutions started to become more aggressive in raising deposit rates, ICS and CDARS made it easy to accommodate rate-sensitive customers on a case-by-case basis without cannibalizing our other deposits.
Half of our members rely on [IntraFi’s] services to attract deposits so they can make loans supporting community development in some of the most underserved urban neighborhoods and rural communities in the country. On average, the community development banks attract reciprocal deposits at four times the level of other community banks. That translates into loans to small businesses, loans for mortgages and home improvement, loans for revitalization projects - loans that otherwise would not be made.
ACT is really an expansion of the funding pool and of the relationships that drive success at MDIs and CDFIs. It's a long-term play, not a short-term gap-filler,
Our public funds customers appreciate knowing that when they place their funds through ICS, those funds are eligible for FDIC protection beyond $250,000 and earn interest. That benefits them, as well as local taxpayers, as our bank can make those funds available for investment within the community.
What Depositors Say
[My boss] has an ‘on top of it’ philosophy. [ICS] gives us a single statement and we know we’re protected, and where the money has been transferred to. The service was made for someone like him.
There is just no downside. This is one of those few products (ICS & CDARS) that work as advertised and there are no gotchas.
The tool(reciprocal deposits) provides a very healthy balance for the safety, liquidity, and yield.
We need things as simple as simple can be. That’s how we started with [ICS and CDARS]. Been with them since 2008.
The IntraFi product protects our funds, earns a competitive rate, and does not cost us the significant time and effort required if we were to do this ourselves.
An important motivator in our using a single bank is that the business is a cash business, and every day we must make trips to the bank, as the company collects money from customers on a daily basis. Many still pay in checks. Having one bank to work with [using ICS and CDARS] makes it much easier.
When we looked at this product (ICS & CDARS), we said yes, absolutely, this is something we need to jump on. It was a no brainer.
Tell me a reason not to be doing this(reciprocal deposits)? There isn’t one.
. . . You know, we've gotten a little bit more sophisticated since I've come. They used to make about 50 to 100 grand a year in interest. Last year, or this year ending June 30, we probably will make almost half a million [while protecting our investment with FDIC insurance].
Upon joining the county treasurer’s office, I was intrigued to learn that a portion of the county’s funds were placed through CDARS. I quickly appreciated the security and ease of placing large deposits through a single bank while keeping the money FDIC insured, and have since added the ICS serivce as well. CDARS and ICS free up the capital of smaller banks to finance community growth while still allowing them to accept our larger deposits. We can support the prosperity of the community while investing the taxpayers’ money competitively and safety through a community bank. A winning combination.
As a CEO, you don’t ever think of your bank account as not being secure, but that crisis changed my view. Going forward, I would never consider putting my money in a bank that doesn’t offer ICS.
Our school system has utilized the CDARS service for years and is very pleased about the addition of the ICS service. With CDARS, we have access to FDIC insurance on our funds that are invested for a longer timeframe while meeting our investment policy mandates and earning CD-level returns. With ICS, we can protect and invest our funds on a shorter-term basis while earning a return. CDARS and ICS combined provide us with an efficient cash management solution.
This product offers us both the liquidity and safety that we are looking for and allows us to capitalize on the cash needs of our growing, evolving company, especially through our relationship with [our bank].
I was looking for a flexible investment vehicle that I could use for a special need we had. With ICS and CDARS, I found safety, flexibility, and yield - all in one place!
With ICS, our town can access multi-million-dollar FDIC insurance protection, as well as earn interest. Plus, our bank can make these funds available for investment within the local community.
We were mainly interested in ICS for the security." “You know, one less thing to worry about. But the time savings have been huge, too. For many companies, this would probably be the main selling point—most people think they need relationships with ten other banks to get insurance coverage. They don’t.”
The previous Treasurer kept all the money in local government pools, and then had pledged securities as collateral. All of the money was not local. They didn't have any local banks. So what I did when I came in as treasurer was analyze those accounts and move a large portion of our money to local community banks. [Our city] is the state capital, but it is a very small town so to speak. Now, having that money in municipal local banks was important for me because then the local banks can then lend that money out to local businesses. I worked for 25 years in banking and understand that concept, so it was important to me that the municipality helped support the local financial institutions. Without IntraFi that would not have been possible.
If I am going to take money from investors, it would be a fiduciary lapse not to use these products (ICS & CDARS)
