M&I Bank
If you’re a low or average income earner who wishes to borrow money for a small business, you would most probably shun the idea of going to the bank for a loan. Most small-scale borrowers crush out banks as an option for the reason that they don’t have anything to present as guarantee or collateral for the loan and they would rather turn to loan sharks for the needed money. Contrary to popular belief, however, there is bank designed to serve the financially underserved markets. It is called a community development bank, which is regulated to provide credit and financial services to residents of low to moderate-income geographical areas in a bid to spur economic development on that community. And one of the community development banks in the United States that has successfully fulfilled this role is the M&I Bank.
M&I Bank or Marshall & Ilsley Bank is the largest bank that is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Named after its founders Samuel Marshall and Charles Ilsley, the bank has about an asset worth US$58.3 billion and projected to grow further. Since its establishment in 1847, there are now about 192 M&I Bank offices throughout the Wisconsin state alone. Outside its bailiwick are 48 branches scattered in Arizona, 30 along the west coast and central Florida, 16 in Kansas City and nearby communities, 22 in metropolitan Minneapolis, three in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and one in Las Vegas, Nevada. For more than 150 years in the banking industry, M&I Bank has fully grown and successfully served as an industry leader in providing community development banking services for the people in the US.
What is the secret in attaining this success? The bank attributes its success from its customer-based approach, internal growth, and strategic acquisitions in finance servicing. In fact, M&I bank credit rating is highly marked for its financial achievement in balancing loans and assets. The bank manages to give more loans to many people yet maintaining high assets at the same time. One of the strategies is providing a low interest M&I bank loan, which would be easier to pay. If a loan can be easily paid, a borrower can pay it in short time making the bank to earn and lend more loans and other financial services to many people.
Aside from loan lending, M&I Bank also provides trust and investment management, , mortgage banking, asset-based lending, financial planning, investments, and insurance services, among others.
Whatever benefits the financially underserved people enjoy from the bank today should be owed to the founders of the bank whose principle of providing quality service is still being respectfully held by M&I Bank.
According to the historical account of the bank, it was in the spring of 1847 when businessman Samuel Marshall stepped foot in Milwaukee with several thousand dollars and opened "Samuel Marshall & Co., Exchange Brokers" in a rented half space of a cobbler shop. Two years later, Charles Ilsley joined him to build one of the premier financial institutions in Wisconsin today—the M&I Bank.
At present, the bank takes pride in helping low to moderate-income communities where they are located to economically grow and developed through housing and livelihood projects, among others. M&I Bank also helps fund non-profit organization that develops not just the economic growth of a certain community but as well as promote its cultural aspects.
So if you’re a depositor who doesn’t want just to grow your money but help build economically developed communities as well then M&I Bank should be the bank of your choice. On the other hand, if you’re a would-be borrower who wants to make sure of getting an affordable low-interest loan, M&I Bank is definitely the place to go.