As a new sponsor of the Chattanooga Bar Association, First Bank is hoping to establish mutually beneficial relationships with attorneys in the city. As the president of the Lexington, Tenn.-based company’s East Tennessee branches, Sam Jones wants to prove a bank is more than brick, mortar, and money; it’s an important part of a community.
“Even though we’re statewide,” he says, “we consider ourselves to be a community bank.”
A community bank with $2.2 billion in assets, that is. First Bank was founded in 1907 in Scotts Hill, Tenn., giving the company the kind of small town roots that appeals to many people who grew up in the South. Current owner Jim Ayers purchased the company in 1995 and grew it from $15 million in assets to what it controls today.
“Jim grew First Bank organically,” Jones says. “He made acquisitions along the way, but in cities like Memphis and Knoxville, he’d go in, find a place for a bank, and then hire local people to run it.”
Ayers did the same thing when he brought on Jones in 2006 to open branches in Chattanooga. Two years later, First Bank opened the doors to locations at the corner of 4th Avenue and Chestnut downtown and at Hamilton Place across from Big River Grille.
Although Ayers could have hired bankers with whom he’d worked in other cities to run the new branches, he wanted to give the jobs to local people who knew the market and could make decisions based on their knowledge of what would and wouldn’t work in their community.
“I grew up in Red Bank, graduated from Red Bank High School, and went to UTC,” Jones says. “I’ve been in the local banking industry for 36 years, and everyone I’ve hired in Chattanooga has been a lifelong banker who’s worked here.”
Jones says having the sensibilities of a community bank doesn’t mean being unable to compete with regional banks. Rather, he says First Bank can go toe-to-toe with any large institution.
“We have several good small business products and one good consumer product we think would interest attorneys and their clients,” Jones says. “We have Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts, of course, and for the small businesses attorneys represent, we have a checking account that will allow a business to make up to 300 transactions a month before we charge a service fee. For the larger folks, we have good treasury products. We’ll stack ourselves up against any large bank when it comes to complex commercial transactions.”
First Bank’s marquee product for consumers is its First Rewards checking account. It’s free, it pays 1.5 percent interest on accounts up to $20,000, and it comes with free use of any ATM nationwide.
“You can go to any bank’s ATM in the country, and at the end of the month, we’ll refund their service charge to your account,” Jones says. “So, you can go to Las Vegas and rack up a hundred dollars in ATM charges, and we’ll refund all of them.”
In addition to traditional banking services, First Bank has a mortgage loan division and an investment division at each branch. “Every office has its own mortgage originators and does its own underwriting, and our investment division manages portfolios ranging in size from $5,000 to several million dollars,” Jones says.
First Bank became a sponsor of the Bar as a result of the very thing on which the company bases its business model: local ties. CBA President-Elect Paul Hatcher originally proposed the idea to Ryan Marshall, First Bank’s relationship officer for his firm, Duncan, Hatcher, Hixson & Fleenor. Marshall took the proposal to Jones, and then the three of them along with Lynda Hood, the executive director of the CBA, worked out the details over lunch and during subsequent meetings.
Hatcher says the two organizations are a good match. “Lawyers and law firms want the personalized service First Bank provides, and the assurance that when a need arises, a bank officer is standing by. The bank, meanwhile, wants the opportunity to introduce its products, such as accounts and business loans, to the legal community, which it perceives is a particularly desirable market. First Bank is in the process of customizing its products specifically for the CBA. It’s a win-win situation.”
“It was an easy decision for us,” Jones says. “We see our sponsorship as a way to develop good relationships with the attorneys in town and to get referrals for banking customers.”
Jones hopes a long and fruitful partnership between First Bank and the CBA lies ahead. “This is a good opportunity for us. We want 2014 to be the first of many years of our sponsorship of the Bar.”