Albina Bank Receives $500,000 Award from Treasury Department

Albina Community Bank received a $500,000 federal award at a recent event at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Arthur A. Garcia, director of the Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, announced that the bank will receive the funds through the department's Bank Enterprise Award Program in 2006.
Albina Bank earned the award for its support of the community through small-business loans, home improvement loans and commercial real estate loans to underserved areas of Portland.
The funds are part of approximately $12 million awarded by the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund to 47 FDIC-insured institutions across the country that provide critically needed financial products and services to economically disadvantaged people and communities. The average award was $232,941.
"This year, Albina celebrates a decade of creating hope and financial opportunity for the economically underserved," said Bob McKean, the bank's president and CEO. "What better way to celebrate than with this award and the U.S. Treasury's recognition of the importance of our community development work?"
Over the past several years, the bank has been a strong competitor for these awards, with previous Bank Enterprise Awards totaling more than $3.7 million.
Through the Bank Enterprise Award Program, the community development fund awards financial institutions for increasing the investment they make in community development activities.
"The Bank Enterprise Award Program strives to help address the need for capital and basic financial services in many of the underserved distressed communities across the country," Garcia said. "By encouraging the development of partnerships between banks and Community Development Financial Institutions, and by providing residents of low-income communities needed financial services, we are achieving the fund's vision of an America where all people have adequate access to affordable credit, capital and financial services."
Albina Community Bank operates from five Portland locations including 2002 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.; 8040 N. Lombard St. in the St. John's neighborhood; 4020B N.E. Fremont St. in the Beaumont neighborhood; and 430 N.W. 10th Ave. in the Pearl District. For more information about the bank, call 503-287-7537 or visit www.albinabank. com.