Indiana-based United Fidelity Bank has finalized its purchase of the Bank of St. Croix and its two banking centers on the big island, UFB announced Wednesday.
“It has been our continued goal to move into markets with stable core deposit funding and dynamic lending opportunities,” UFB President and Chief Executive Officer Donald Neel said in a statement. “As part of our opportunistic growth strategy, we also seek out prime locations and identify outstanding employees. Our partnership with the Bank of St. Croix meets all of these goals.”
The Bank of St. Croix will its name because of its recognition on the islands, but the operation itself will be called “Bank of St. Croix, a division of United Fidelity Bank.”
In November, Neel said if the sale goes through Crucians could be using mobile-phone banking before the end of 2017, suggested that ATM fees may not have surcharges and may improve access to some loan types.
“They have access to internet banking now, but they’ll also have access to mobile phone banking as well, not initially, but once we complete the data conversion, which will probably be the second or third quarter of 2017 if the transaction is approved,” Neel said in Novembrer.
On ATMs, he said the bank is "taking steps to make sure that all of our customers can use most ATMs across the country with no surcharge. We don’t have 100 percent penetration yet but we’re working on that to make it convenient for all of our customers.”
St. Croix has not had a mainland-based lender since First Bank Puerto Rico purchased Citibank and J.P. Morgan Chase operations in the early 2000s.
The sale could also bring more Small Business Administration loans. These federally assisted loans help borrowers work with lenders to make real estate and other fixed-asset purchases. Both banks have the ability to make these loans but United Fidelity Bank does so more frequently than Bank of St. Croix.
With this purchase, UFB now has 17 banking centers and roughly $560 million in total assets. It has banks in Evansville, Carmel, Newburgh, Ft. Branch and Mt. Vernon, Ind., and in Cincinnati, Chicago, Denver, and Ft. Myers, Fla.
Bank of St. Croix had been a locally owned bank until the purchase. The V.I. Banking Board was notified of the planned sale in May 2016.
The UFB is a federal savings association regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. It is headquartered in Evansville, Ind. UFB is a member of the FDIC and its transaction accounts are FDIC insured. The UFB is authorized by the OCC to operate banks in Evansville, Indianapolis, Chicago, Cincinnati and Denver-Boulder.
The change should have minor effects on the bank’s operation. In June of 2016, Lt. Gov. Osbert Potter said UFB had assured the V.I Division of Banking and Insurance there will not be any employee layoffs and the management team and the other employees of BSC would be retained.
