Carver Federal Savings Bank to grow retail investors through
commitment to reinvesting in communities they serve
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Caribbean Life, January 7-13, 2022 21
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Carver Federal Savings
Bank plans to grow
retail investors by reinvesting
in the communities
they serve through
public and private sector
partnerships, focus on job
preservation and through
teaching financial education
skills.
“The key ingredient is
to work through public
and private sectors to ultimately
deliver solutions
that will help the community
at large,” said Michael
Pugh, president and
CEO of Carver Bancorp,
Inc., the holding company
for Carver Federal
Savings Bank which is a
federally chartered stock
savings bank that provides
community-focused
banking services.
Headquartered in Harlem,
Carver was founded
in 1948 to serve African
American communities
whose residents, businesses
and institutions
had limited access to
mainstream financial services.
Through the years,
they’ve kept that commitment
by reinvesting 80
cents of every deposited
dollar back into the communities
they serve.
Over the past few years,
Carver has provided financial
education skills and
workshops for more than
16,000 people, including
small businesses, to help
them to thrive. Carver
has also provided more
than $23 million in access
to capital to Women and
Minority Entrepreneurs
through public and private
sector partnerships.
“If an investor or a new
bank customer says, ‘I
want to be a part of making
a difference,’ then
Carver is the right place
for them,” Pugh said.
In the past year, Carver
received a long-term equity
investment of approximately
$10 million from
JPMorgan Chase. The
additional capital, made
available through the equity
investment, means
Carver can continue lending
to Women and Minority
Business Entrepreneurs
and to nonprofit
organizations, especially
nonprofits that have social
service programs and initiatives
to add jobs to the
communities that Carver
serves.
Carver will also use
the proceeds to expand its
financial education programs
in the diverse lowto
moderate income communities
it serves and to
explore new initiatives
that create economic empowerment
in communities
of color.
Carver also partnered
with Wells Fargo to provide
customers with more
access points to their
money nationwide. Combined
with the Allpoint
ATM Network service,
Carver’s customers can
now make withdrawals,
transfer funds and check
account balances at more
than 80,000 Wells Fargo
ATMs worldwide without
incurring a surcharge
fee.
“So not only are we
now addressing solutions
that help provide capital,
but we’re also making
banking accessible at a
national scale to the customers
that we so cherish,”
Pugh said. Adding,
“The partnerships with
Wells Fargo, Chase and
others, are allowing us to
continue to think about
how we tackle the wealth
gap issue,” Pugh said.
Carver impacts lives
socially and economically
by spending time in the
communities they work
with and talking to real
people about real experiences,
Pugh said. With
Carver’s support, many
small business entrepreneurs
were able to grow
their business from a concept
to reality.
Over the past year,
Carver successfully garnered
roughly $30.5 million
in capital through institutional
investors such
as JPMorgan Chase, Wells
Fargo, Bank of America,
and Morgan Stanley. But
Carver also saw an interest
in the overall stock
performance of the company.
Carver Federal Savings
is publicly traded
on the Nasdaq exchange.
During Carver’s 52-weekhigh
the stock moved from
being about $6.60 a share
to more than $14 a share.
“That really is a direct
connection to our story, in
terms of what we do, our
mission, in terms of how
we focus on serving and
being physically out there
to help customers- many
of which need the support
of an institution like
Carver today, more than
ever,” Pugh said.
During the pandemic
Carver provided access
to capital in greater New
York City, distributing
more than 400 loans to
customers through the
paycheck protection program.
These loans helped
support the preservation
of more than 5,000 jobs in
New York City.
Carver also recently
launched a digital platform.
Now, Carver is
available in nine states
for customers interested
in opening an account
from the comfort of their
home.
“We’re also thinking
about how we continue
to provide greater access
to credit solutions from
a much more digital platform
standpoint, and
we’ve got some exciting
things that are under research
and development,”
Pugh said.
Carver is close to
launching a loan program
that will support customers
and small business
entrepreneurs who don’t
have traditional credit
scoring because 53 million
U.S. adults do not
have traditional credit
scores, according to Fair
Isaac Corp., creator of the
FICO metric.
“But we also know
that a large percentage of
those individuals without
a traditional credit score,
have other credit characteristics
that make them
completely eligible,” Pugh
said. Carver’s new loan
program would address
that, helping small businesses
recover from the
pandemic and ultimately
thrive as well as further
supporting their mission
of helping minorities and
women entrepreneurs.
BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT