Local community banks and credit unions are the essential building blocks for creating a truly local economy. They give us the ability to circulate more dollars in our community while promoting self-sufficiency and independence from external financial shocks. If the institutions that hold our money are not local, we have little hope of sustaining a local culture that values small business, family farms, and the basic idea that our money should be put to use in ways that benefit our communities, not multinational Wall Street banks.
Banks and credit unions often work really hard to “look local” even when some of them are anything but. The Oregon Banks Local campaign researched the banks doing business in Oregon and weighed several objectively measurable factors to rate how local a bank or credit union truly is.