When banks make loans in under-served neighborhoods, it stimulates re-development. When they make loans to small businesses, it creates new jobs. When they support non-profits with grants, it improves the quality of life in a community. When they invest in affordable housing, it helps low-income families to enter the middle class.

No bank holds more local deposits in Durham than Square 1 Bank. That's right! Square 1 has almost $2.5 billion in deposits at its branch in Durham's American Tobacco campus - more than Wells Fargo, Bank of America, BB&T or anyone else. 

But Square 1 has not been engaged in supporting our local community. Indeed, more than half of its deposits are sitting in the bank and not being used at all. Most of the loans they do make are to companies outside of North Carolina.

PacWest is headquartered in California. If PacWest buys Square 1, will it use those deposits to make loans in California?

We want local deposits to go back into Durham to create more affordable housing, create living wage jobs, and build bridges to economic opportunity.

As residents of Durham, we ask the FDIC and the Federal Reserve to make PacWest invest in our community as a condition of merger approval.