TIAA-CREF, the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, medical and cultural fields, announced today that it has more than doubled its Community Bank Deposit Investment Program to $49 million of FDIC insured deposits.
In 2007, TIAA-CREF's Global Social and Community Investing Department announced the program and placed its first $22 million in deposits with Shorebank and Shorebank Pacific, America's first and largest community development bank. In addition to Shorebank, TIA-CREF now is including six other banks in the program: Carver Federal Savings in New York City; City First Bank of DC; City National Bank of NJ in Newark; Mechanics and Farmers Bank in Durham, N.C.; Native American Bank in Denver, Colo.; and New Resource Bank in San Francisco.
"Even in the current economic environment many community banks continue to thrive as they often have innovative solutions to help borrowers," said Roger W. Ferguson Jr., President and CEO of TIAA-CREF. "Under the direction of our Global Social and Community Investment Department, TIAA-CREF continues to make deposits in some of the country's leading community banks as a small step towards helping unthaw the credit crisis in some underserved markets while seeking to earn competitive rates of return on our investments."
Scott Budde, managing director and head of TIAA-CREF's Social & Community Investment Department, says that community and proactive social investing is a growing part of TIAA-CREF's comprehensive approach to socially responsible investing.
In selecting these institutions, TIAA-CREF worked closely with both the Calvert Foundation and the National Community Investment Fund (NCIF) to identify efficient institutions that needed funds at competitive rates in underserved geographic and business markets.