The Wells Fargo NEXT Awards for Opportunity Finance today awarded
nearly $4 million to improve responsible financial products and
services to consumers in disinvested communities. Through
investments in five community development financial institutions
(CDFIs), the NEXT Awards aim to transform how the underbanked and
unbanked in rural, urban, and immigrant communities access capital.
It is the nation’s largest awards program for CDFIs.
The winning CDFIs have demonstrated how technology, strategic
partnerships, and new consumer finance products can address the
more than 60% of Americans struggling with financial health and a
growing number of households across the country who are turning to
high-cost financial products and services because they do not have
access to responsible ones.
“The NEXT Awards delivers on Prudential’s mission to help people
build long-term financial security,” said Lata Reddy, vice
president, corporate social responsibility, Prudential Financial,
Inc. and president of The Prudential Foundation. “We’re proud once
again to partner with OFN to accelerate innovation in consumer
finance by investing in the winning CDFIs. We applaud their
efforts to expand access to critical, affordable financial products
and services that meet the needs of underserved communities.”
This year’s NEXT Awards recipients are merging fintech with
community banking, creating easy-to-use credit and savings
products, and employing targeted strategies to impact communities
often left out of traditional banking.
The multi-million-dollar NEXT Opportunity Award Recipients are
CDFIs with powerful consumer finance strategies that are ready to
be implemented. The awardees are:
- Appalachian Community Federal Credit Union (Gray,
TN) Appalachian Community Federal Credit
Union won a $2 million NEXT Award for its innovative strategy
to expand the credit union’s services in central Appalachia.
Appalachian Community Federal Credit union will use NEXT Award
funds to place Virtual Teller Machines in rural areas and leverage
the award to rapidly deploy $17 million in additional loans in its
service areas. This strategy represents the latest innovation in
the credit union’s investment in technology and remote delivery of
services including a state-of-the-art electronic delivery system
and a 24/7 call center.
- Rio Grande Valley Multibank Corporation (Brownsville,
TX) Rio Grande Valley Multibank Corporation won
a $1.6 million NEXT Award to substantially expand the Community
Loan Center Small-Dollar Loan Program throughout Texas and into
additional states working with CDFI and CDC partners. The program
offers employer-based, small-dollar loans using a franchise model,
which has the ability to scale geographically and become a viable
competitor to payday loans. With the award, Rio Grande Valley
Multibank Corporation plans to make more than 13,000 additional
loans over the next 10 years producing more than $10 million in
total borrower savings. Rio Grande Valley Multibank Corporation is
the leader in envisioning, piloting, and creating the innovative
product and proprietary lending platform.
The NEXT Seed Capital Award Recipients each received a $100,000
NEXT Seed Capital Award for their start-up consumer financial
services strategies:
- Lower Valley Credit Union will use seed funds,
along with strategic partnerships, to place Virtual Teller Machines
in rural immigrant communities in Washington where residents have
limited access to traditional bank branches. The 2,100 agricultural
laborers who are employed at Broetje Orchards during peak fall
harvest season will now have easy, local access to credit union
services such as ITIN mortgage and consumer loans, and LVCU’s
nationally acclaimed Citizenship Program.
- Texas Community Capital is the network
administrator of Rio Grande Multibank Corporation’s innovative
Community Loan Center Small-Dollar Loan Program. Seed capital will
allow Texas Community Capital to expand the employer-based loan
program to borrowers needing access to credit as an alternative to
high-cost payday and auto title loans by signing on and providing
support to new mission-based franchisees in and outside of
Texas.
- The Housing Fund is establishing home loan
solutions for Muslim borrowers seeking affordable and
Sharia-compliant housing financing in Tennessee. The Nashville and
Middle Tennessee area is home to over 80,000 Kurds, Egyptians and
Somalis. The Housing Fund works closely with representatives of the
Muslim community and local bankers to implement the Alternative
Payment Plan mortgage loan product in compliance with Sharia
law.
“At Wells Fargo, we know the importance of helping customers
succeed. These CDFIs represent the future of consumer finance and
their winning strategies promise to strengthen the financial
well-being of our communities. We applaud and congratulate this
year’s winners,” said Lesley Milovich, EVP, head of Wells Fargo
Community Lending and Investment.
“Never before has it been more necessary for CDFIs to embrace
fintech, explore new distribution models, and develop leading-edge,
responsible financial products. The winning strategies prove that
community lenders are the next frontier for innovation in
responsible consumer finance,” said Fran Lutz, interim president
and CEO of Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), the nation’s premier
CDFI network.
OFN presents the NEXT Awards in partnership with Wells Fargo and
Prudential and support from the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation and the Kresge Foundation.
For more information visit NEXTawards.org.
About the Awards
The Wells Fargo NEXT Awards for Opportunity
Finance celebrate the CDFI industry—its creativity,
accomplishments, and enduring importance.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the NEXT Awards.
Launched in 2007, the NEXT Awards celebrate the innovation of the
nation’s most promising CDFIs by awarding more than $76 million
through a competitive awards process. Each year the NEXT Awards
culminates in a ceremony at OFN’s Annual Conference to spotlight
Awardees and the entire CDFI industry.
About the Groups behind the Awards
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) is a
diversified, community-based financial services company with
$1.9 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in
San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance,
investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through
more than 8,600 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet
(wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 36
countries and territories to support customers who conduct business
in the global economy. With approximately 268,000 team members,
Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States.
Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 27 on Fortune’s 2016
rankings of America’s largest corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is
to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed
financially. Wells Fargo perspectives are also available at Wells
Fargo Blogs and Wells Fargo Stories.
Prudential Financial, Inc. (NYSE:PRU), a
financial services leader with over $1 trillion of assets under
management as of June 30, 2016, has operations in the United
States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Prudential’s diverse
and talented employees are committed to helping individual and
institutional customers grow and protect their wealth through a
variety of products and services, including life insurance,
annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds and investment
management. In the U.S., Prudential’s iconic Rock symbol has stood
for strength, stability, expertise and innovation for more than a
century. For more information, please visit
www.news.prudential.com.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation supports creative people, effective
institutions, and influential networks building a more just,
verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur is placing a few big bets
that truly significant progress is possible on some of the world’s
most pressing social challenges, including
over-incarceration, global climate change, nuclear risk, and
significantly increasing financial capital for the social
sector. MacArthur has been a leading supporter of the Opportunity
Finance field since the early 1980s, investing nearly $250 million
in approximately 100 groups nationwide. More information is
available at: www.macfound.org.
The Kresge Foundation is a $3.6 billion
private, national foundation that works to expand opportunities in
America’s cities through grantmaking and social investing in arts
and culture, education, environment, health, human services, and
community development in Detroit. In 2015, the Board of Trustees
approved 371 grants totaling $125.2 million, and nine social
investment commitments totaling $20.3 million. For more
information, visit kresge.org.
Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) is the
leading national network of community development financial
institutions (CDFIs) investing in opportunities that benefit
disinvested communities across America. Through 2014, OFN's network
originated over $42 billion in financing in urban, rural, and
Native communities, with a net charge-off rate of less than one
percent. For more information, visit ofn.org.
Contact
Blair Kahora | blair.kahora@buchananpr.com
Lina Page | lpage@ofn.org
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