State Bank is a full-service, FDIC insured bank working with commercial and consumer customers alike and recently celebrated its 15th anniversary in Columbia.
After spending nearly a decade near downtown, State Bank moved to 428 Sumrall Road in 2012. Despite being in Columbia since 2003, State Bank is often referred to as the “new bank” or “small bank” but operates on a much larger scale than its perception.
“We’re very tech savvy on the mobile banking side with business services and remote deposits. It’s a well-oiled machine,” State Bank City President Todd Watts said. “Part of that is because we have a 34-branch network throughout Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. We’re our own individual cost center, but that gives us a corporate atmosphere.”
While operating as a well-oiled machine allows State Bank to have a corporate aura, its six-employee Columbia branch benefits from being able to build lasting relationships with its members.
“We moved here in 2012 during the worst economy of our lifetime, which validates the things we’ve done have worked. We’ve managed to grow this bank in a bad economy and have been very successful because we are not the square-box, big-bank mentality,” he said. “We’re still the small bank in town, and we’d like to stay that way because that allows us to deal with a whole customer set of what Columbia made up of: consumer-based small business.”
Watts, who enjoys potentially being a game changer for financial futures, said State Bank enjoys interacting with friends in the community on a daily basis more so than anything else.
“We’re not interested in having your checking account. We’re not interested in having just your vehicle loan or home equity loan. We want the relationship because that’s what we enjoy. We want to know your family, your needs and what’s going on in your world, and we want to blend that into what’s going on in our world,” he said. “If someone comes in to open a checking account and we never see them again, we’ve not done our job. We want to be a part of that total relationship.”
Much of State Bank’s success in Columbia derives from its staff providing customers with tellers they went to school with or see at the ball park.
“They live in this community as I do,” Watts said. “They participate in this community as I do. We’re not implants from the big markets. We’re homegrown just like our bank. We make local decisions when it comes to loan processing and loan approval. You need that in a small town. You need that ability to make a decision a spot, even on the cell phone. Customers like that. They don’t want to have to leave work and go to the bank. Employers don’t want that.”
Continued growth with a satisfied customer base is how Watts defined success for State Bank, which has been evident throughout its 15 years in Columbia. Remaining a developing institution has resulted in much of the bank’s business being conducted electronically.
“We do as much business that way as we do face to face in the branch,” Watts said. “That mode of business will continue to grow to where we’re spending less and less time face to face. The size of the deal doesn’t matter.”
State Bank is open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Friday. It can be reached by phone at (601) 736-3643.
Pictured Above: The State Bank team in Columbia includes, from left, Shana Forbes, Renee Billingsley, Todd Watts, Brandy Fortenberry, Sabrina Pope and Sandra Terrell. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
