What is the most distinctive characteristic of community banking?
For us, our associates have the opportunity to make the majority of our decisions locally because there is only one shareholder and sole owner, Jim Ayers. Because of his entrepreneurial spirit and advocacy for Tennessee, he established FirstBank as a bank based on attitude and commitment — not size or assets. What concerns you most regarding the current banking climate — your competition or consumers’ banking behavior? With the recent failures of the Wall Street banks and instability of some financial institutions, what alarms me more than any of our competition is individuals who question their financial relationships and have lost trust in our banking system. I’m concerned about those individuals who are taking their FDIC-insured money out of accounts and putting it under their mattresses thinking their money is safe. Nothing is further than the truth. That’s what keeps me up at night.
