Company: BCTF
Filing Date: 2025-03-06
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001552781-25-000058
Chunk: 57

Company: Bancorp 34, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-06
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 57
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 results due to competition with other financial institutions.

We face substantial
competition in all areas of our operations from a variety of different competitors, both within and beyond our principal markets, many
of which are larger and may have more financial resources. Such competitors primarily include national, super-regional, and internet
banks within the various markets in which we operate. We also face competition from many other types of financial institutions, including,
without limitation, savings and loans, credit unions, finance companies, brokerage firms, insurance companies, and other financial intermediaries.
The financial services industry could become even more competitive as a result of legislative and regulatory changes and continued consolidation.
In addition, as customer preferences and expectations continue to evolve, technology has lowered barriers to entry and made it possible
for nonbanks to offer products and services traditionally provided by banks, such as automatic transfer and automatic payment systems.
Many of our competitors have fewer regulatory constraints and may have lower cost structures. Additionally, due to their size, many competitors
may be able to achieve economies of scale and, as a result, may offer a broader range of products and services as well as better pricing
for those products and services than we can.

Our ability to compete
successfully depends on a number of factors, including, among other things:

    ·
    our ability to develop, maintain,
    and build upon long-term customer relationships based on top quality service, high ethical standards, and safe and sound assets;

    ·
    our ability to expand our market position;

    ·
    the scope, relevance, and pricing of the products
    and services we offer to meet our customers’ needs and demands;

    ·
    the rate at which we introduce new products and
    services relative to our competitors;

    ·
    customer satisfaction with our level of service;
    and

    ·
    industry and general economic trends.

Failure to perform in
any of these areas could significantly weaken our competitive position, making it more difficult to attract new and retain existing clients
and our net interest margin and net interest income could decline, which would adversely affect our results of operations and could cause
us to incur losses in the future.

Consumers
may decide not to use banks to complete their financial transactions.

Technology and other
changes are allowing parties to complete financial transactions through alternative methods that historically have involved banks. For
example, consumers can now maintain funds that would have historically been held as bank deposits in brokerage accounts, mutual fund,
general-purpose reloadable prepaid cards, or cryptocurrencies. Consumers