The St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance (SLEHCRA) is pleased announce its endorsement of Stifel Bank and Trust’s CRA Strategic Plan.  Once approved by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Strategic Plan will guide Stifel Bank over the next three years in their community outreach and commitment efforts.

Although not widely used, CRA Strategic Plans are an option banks can choose within CRA regulations instead of receiving a standardized CRA evaluation.  Stifel Bank and Trust is the only bank in the St. Louis metropolitan area that developed a CRA Strategic Plan. The Federal Reserve describes strategic plans in this way:

“This option allows an institution to develop a plan with the community input detailing how the institution proposes to meet its CRA obligation. The plan is tailored to the needs of the community using direct community input at the development stage. The institution informally seeks suggestions from the public while developing the plan and once developed it must publish notice of the plan and solicit written public comment for at least 30 days. After the comment period, the institution submits the plan to its regulator for review and approval.”

When a bank with a strategic plan is due for a CRA evaluation, they are evaluated on the specific goals outlined in their strategic plan. Stifel Bank and Trust held a 30 day open comment period to solicit input from the public on its strategic plan. Community members interested in fully reviewing the plan and providing comments can contact the bank online or by visiting 12655 Olive Blvd, Suite 250, St. Louis, MO 63141.

The items in the Stifel Bank CRA Strategic Plan set forth a significant commitment by the bank regarding lending, investment, and services for community development in the St. Louis assessment area. Although Stifel Bank and Trust operates in 45 states across the U.S., this strategic plan will operate specifically for the St. Louis region where the bank has one branch location in St. Louis City and another in St. Louis County. Given these two branch locations, Stifel Bank and Trust’s assessment area used in its CRA evaluation includes St. Louis City, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, and Jefferson County.

The specific goals Stifel Bank and Trust has proposed to strive to meet to achieve an “outstanding” rating in the first year includes:

–        Home loan originations to low- and moderate-income communities above 2 percent of the bank’s peer lenders

–        Originate at least $12.5 million in CRA qualified community development loans

–        Originate at least $25 million in community development investments

–        Give 0.625% of prior year’s profits in charitable donations back to the community

–        Give 1.25 hours in community service activities for each full time employee

–        Underwrite $125 million in community development bond offerings

In order to meet these ambitions goals, Stifel Bank and Trust has an robust plan to work with community organizations, to market their services to low- and moderate-income communities, and to regularly evaluate their practices to ensure that they are meeting the lending needs of low- and moderate-income communities within their assessment area.  SLEHCRA looks forward to working in partnership with Stifel Bank and Trust as their strategic plan moves into implementation.