Regents Bank President Steve Sefton: Five Reasons You Should Be Using a Community Bank

Steve Sefton, President of Regents Bank

Featured in a recent interview in SD Metro Magazine’s July Banking Feature, Regents Bank President Steve Sefton touched on a number of advantages that local businesses enjoy by working with a local community bank instead of a national “big bank”.

Here are five take-aways from the interview that businesses should consider when making a decision to start a new banking relationship:

1.) A community bank’s mission is to invest in its community. Regents Bank and its employees not only assist many local businesses with their financial needs, but they are also very involved in making their community a better place to live and work.

2.) The personalization of banking services and relationships is much more likely to be found at a community bank. At Regents Bank it’s called “Consultative Banking”, and it’s centered not on pushing a product or service at a client, but first creating a relationship with a sincere interest in learning what the business owner’s short and long-term business goals and objectives are.

3.) The local community banker should hold a position on a business owner’s “advisory council” because of the banker’s ability to customize advice based on the knowledge they have because of the personal relationship they’ve developed with the business owner. Regents Bank’s professional staff certainly has the ability to be reactive when a client hits a “bump in the road”. But more important, our bankers are proactive and take the initiative to provide sound business advice which often helps our clients avoid those bumps.

4.) Relationships are more important than a lower interest rate. There will always be a bank dangling a lower interest rate, but is that more important than a close working relationship with a local banker? Not to mention community banks are much more efficient time-wise when processing business loan requests.

5.) Check your bank’s financial health regularly. Require your bank, whether it be a community bank or a “big bank”, to provide you with a “report card” every quarter so you aren’t caught off-guard if a financial problem with the bank arises.

Regents Bank has offices in San Diego, La Jolla, Carlsbad and El Cajon, CA as well as an office in Vancouver, WA.