(Huffington Post) — After more than a century of delivering financial resources to underserved communities, black-owned banks are struggling to remain relevant — and solvent — in an economic environment full of pitfalls. Their traditional customer base — lower and middle class blacks, small business owners and churches — has been disproportionately affected by high unemployment, leaving customers with less money to deposit and, in turn, leaving many of these smaller financial institutions with less capital to reinvest in their communities. As customers have fallen on hard times or fallen behind in their loan repayments or mortgages, home foreclosures have become a nagging issue, hamstringing banks’ portfolios with toxic loans. Meanwhile, many customers with big savings and healthy checking accounts opt for the flexibility of larger banks, which offer more branches and a wider variety of services. ”This minority bank community is really catching hell,” said Michael Grant, the president of theNational Banker’s Association, an 84-year-old trade group that represents minority-owned banks. “They have survived everything, including world wars and Jim Crow, but this has been one of the most difficult periods of all.”
