Whereas five years ago the bank's business was 80 percent agriculture, it now relies one third each on the real estate, commercial and agriculture sectors. At the Roxbury office, agriculture remains a dominant motif. With dependency on wheat, milo and cattle, today's dismal commodity prices can hurt. Then, of course, there's the down-home personal touch. In our industry, with all the consolidations and banks gobbling up each other, there's getting more and more to be a niche for community banks that have a personal relationship and who care about their customers and their customers' success.
Some clients are happy with that kind of service.
Take him, for example. He looks after his own banking needs electronically, and financed his last vehicle purchase on the Internet. A lot of customers, however, want something more. And he's prepared to provide it. I can't imagine someone having functioned this long without a computer, but people are at different places on the spectrum.