The Midstate Bulletin Board Blog: Teaching Financial Literacy During the Summer

School is out for summer, and on behalf of the entire Midstate staff, we wanted to congratulate all the students throughout Baltimore on the completion of another year of school (no matter which year it is).

Now, while children think that summer is the perfect time to try to forget everything they learned throughout the year, it is the parents’ job to not only prevent that, but maybe even try to teach them something new. As a community bank, we are always looking to help, so we suggest a topic that will offer real-world experience: Financial Literacy.

To start, here are some ideas on how you can implement in your house, broken down by different age groups:

Kindergarten-6th Grade: Teaching financial literacy can start before they know what either of those two words mean. During the school year, it may be tough to get kids this age to do chores consistently, but during the summer it is different. Make their allowance dependent on successfully and consistently completing required tasks, and perhaps add a summer-long project to the list as well (organizing the pantry, cleaning out a closet, etc.).

7th Grade-9th Grade: Once in middle school, it is key to incorporate a new level of responsibility, as well as communications component. Ask family, friends and neighbors if they need any extra help that “young legs” would be useful at. It may be easy for a young person to argue about work at home, but when it is someone else, the feeling of responsibility kicks in. However, you should not offer it as “free” labor. A key part of financial literacy is understanding worth, and therefore, they should be compensated relatively fairly for their work.

10th Grade-12th Grade: Once someone reaches the legal working age, a part-time job is the perfect next step to learning about finances, but additionally, working as a teenager can help determine the basic profile of the type of work your child might is good at (and may want to consider as a full-time job). Do they like to work inside or outside? With a team or alone? During the morning or evening? All of these can help put a path towards a career. Once they start getting an official paycheck, give them tips on how they should divide it up. Discuss a potential “goal” purchase they need to work towards and how they can save responsibility for it. This the part we can help with. Bring them with you to the bank to understand the different types of accounts they can explore.

College age: At this stage of their life, they have either been (or craved) independence, so on top of working at a job, give them more advanced responsibilities around they house that would help improve that skill set. Assign them the duty of buying and cooking dinner for the family one night or organizing a family event with a budget. This is the perfect method to have them implement everything they have learned.

These are just a few tips on how you can keep your son or daughter focused outside of the classroom. Not all are appropriate for every family, but one thing that should be universal is that managing money is a learned skill, and the sooner you can teach your child the essentials, the more prepared they will be to handle the responsibility.

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Customers of the Midstate Federal Savings and Loan Association all know about our famous bulletin board, where local and industry news is shared. This blog will serve as our virtual bulletin board, so you can keep up when you don’t have a chance to visit us at the bank. You can also visit us on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

The Midstate Bulletin Board Blog: One of Our Oldest Traditions

Those that have been with us for any length of time know that the beginning of spring means it is Seed Time. Customers young and old (and anywhere in between) are invited to take a free packet or two from our display when they come into the branch, bring them home, and plant a new selection of flowers in your garden (or perhaps it can be the first selection in a brand new garden that you or your children are starting).

The seed tradition at Midstate has been in place for decades, before even our own Miss Kitty’s first day at the bank (which readers of this blog know is more than 62 years ago). Why seeds of all things? Well, there are a number of reasons. On a broad scale, community banks and rural America have always been tied throughout history. In the past, farmers could take out loans knowing the money they were paying back would help build the community that could eventually buy their products. Even today, community banks across the country have shown a great understanding of the agriculture industry and the long-term benefits they can provide. Approximately 75% of all commercial bank agriculture loans are from community banks with assets under $10 billion (with nearly 60 percent of those being from community banks with under $1 billion in assets).

More specifically though, our main reason for distributing seeds is just another way we try to give back to the community. We love Baltimore and have quite literally evolved with the city since our inception more than 12 decades ago. So, we want to do everything we can to keep the community thriving in our own way. Obviously, our professional services are our main offering, but we also like to supplement that with a personal touch, such as continuing a tradition to help encourage local gardeners in the area.

So take a minute to come visit us at the bank and participate in one of our oldest traditions. It is the perfect way to welcome in spring.

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Customers of the Midstate Federal Savings and Loan Association all know about our famous bulletin board, where local and industry news is shared. This blog will serve as our virtual bulletin board, so you can keep up when you don’t have a chance to visit us at the bank. You can also visit us on our Facebook and Twitter  pages.

The Midstate Bulletin Board Blog: March 22, 1950

March 22, 1950. Why is that day so important?

Well, just a few days earlier, the Periodic Table’s 98th element was founded at University of California at Berkley (they named it Californium); the first Volkswagen Type 2 rolled off the assembly line (we know it better as the Volkswagen Bus); and the Diner’s Club Card was used for the first time (known in the credit card industry as the “first supper”).

But on that day, a young woman named Kitty Gerling first started at a community bank in Baltimore that had been around since 1884.

62 years later:

• There are now 118 elements on the Periodic Table.
• The Volkswagen Bus is considered a cult classic (to the point that if you see one – whether it is in a driveway or on a highway – you point it out to whomever you are with).
• Diner’s Club International is now in 200 countries and 70 different currencies.

And, Kitty Gerling, affectionately called Miss Kitty by all that know her, is still with Midstate Federal (now in its 129th year), and celebrating her anniversary with a beautiful cake.

Miss Kitty’s anniversary brings up a larger point about the efforts of community banks. A bank like Midstate, which has been dedicated to linking itself to the Baltimore community since it first opened, doesn’t just talk about being part of the community. It is an institution that understands that being part of the community mandates certain responsibilities, such as continuity. Larger banks may do it through a mascot or spokesperson. Midstate chooses to do it via someone that has worked at every level of the bank and has first-hand stories to share of its history.

62 years. Things in the world have changed quite a bit, but at Midstate Federal, while the bank has evolved, there continues to be a level of consistency that very few organizations (much less banks) can offer its customers. We are proud that Miss Kitty continues to be part of our institution because she, in fact, is an institution herself.

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Customers of the Midstate Federal Savings and Loan Association all know about our famous bulletin board, where local and industry news is shared. This blog will serve as our virtual bulletin board, so you can keep up when you don’t have a chance to visit us at the bank.

The Midstate Bulletin Board Blog: Turning America Saves Week into America Saves Year

February 19^th kicked off America Saves Week for 2012, a national campaign to encourage individuals and families to save money and build personal wealth by providing free financial tools, savings services, advice and resources that help Americans from every income level take the steps needed to take charge of their finances and manage money more effectively.

The quote on the AmericaSaves.org website, the organization that is the catalyst for this annual event, that best states why this is such an important cause is:

“By inspiring a strong savings ethic in people, we can improve the financial health of our schools and businesses, our communities, and our nation.”

This initiative, and others like it such as the Feed the Pig initiative spurred by American Institute of CPAs (and their complementary Benjamin Bankes Facebook page), have the ability to educate on a broad level, but that alone can’t influence the change that needs to happen for Americans to be as prepared as they need to be financially.

Initiatives like this won’t be successful without participation from entities at the local level that individuals trust. For example, as a community bank, we see it as our goal to take the idea of teaching personal savings to the next level. Yes, we offer broad advice on saving and investing, both in person at our branch and our sites and pages online. However, because we have been located in Baltimore for more than 125 years, we know how to customize it for the residents of this great city. We know how our customers think as well as what makes sense and what doesn’t. We can give specific ideas that are practical based on everything from age to savings criteria to help you plan your savings strategy for the other 51 weeks of the year.

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Customers of the Midstate Federal Savings and Loan Association all know about our famous bulletin board, where local and industry news is shared. This blog will serve as our virtual bulletin board, so you can keep up when you don’t have a chance to visit us at the bank.

The Midstate Bulletin Board Blog: 4 Ways A Community Bank’s Social Media Pages are Better than an ATM

Do you trust social media enough to use it for bank transactions? If you giggled at the thought, you are not alone. A recent study indicates that only 10% of consumers are comfortable with the idea of using social media sites to review or check account balances. However, that does not (and should not) preclude a person from choosing to follow their bank’s social media pages because what makes social media different is, well, that social media IS different.

In the past, the average bank customer had access to 2 industry-related pieces of technology:

1. The ATM
2. The bank website

We will concede that ATM’s give you access to money and the website can give you information about your account, and while those are two tough advantages to overcome, there is so much more that a bank can offer (especially a community bank) and no better way to accomplish it than through social media.

In a recent study on the how the social media community relates to the financial services industry, two interesting points were determined:

1. Most Americans have strong misgivings about mixing personal finances and social networks, ranging from 4‐to‐1 resistance against receiving updates about promotions and discounts to 9‐to‐1 in resistance against reviewing or receiving account balances.
2. Financial institutions engaging in social media must confront fundamental issues, such as how to balance responsiveness and regulatory compliance, how to handle private conversations in public places, and how to effectively direct customers to information.

These are broad results, and include institutions beyond just your typical bank, but what it means is that people don’t like talking about their personal finance on their Wall or Feed.

Our response: We don’t blame you AND we wouldn’t ask you to either.

At Midstate, we know what our customers interests are, and when we developed our social media channels, we did so with that in mind. We put our pages together as one more way to learn about our branch, our industry and our community of Baltimore. For example:

1. You can learn what makes a Community Bank different then a Big Bank

• According to industry expert Dave Clarke: “The nation’s roughly 4,100 community banks (about 52% of all banks, according to the FDIC) saw their assets rise, some by as much as 27% in the past five years. That means community banks continue to be part of the conversation, something for which social media and inbound marketing is ideally suited.”

2. You can learn what makes a Community Bank an essential part of the community.

• The local weather, news or the ‘ebbs-and-flows’ of the local sports team are all supplemental information you can typically get in near real time from a social media page based around the community.

3. You can learn financial literacy tips (customized to where you live):

• ATMs can give you money, but can they give you recommendations on how to spend it wisely in your area?

4. You can ask questions (or learn answers to questions you never thought to ask)

• If you have a financial question, chances are your neighbor, colleague or friend does as well, and this is the perfect way to share it.

So, whether it is communicating with the our local Towson Tigers, sharing financial literacy tips that make sense for our community, or sharing our holiday hours, we believe our social media pages offer a perfect opportunity for our customers to learn from. So, follow our pages on Facebook and Twitter and let us know if you feel the same.

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Customers of the Midstate Federal Savings and Loan Association all know about our famous bulletin board, where local and industry news is shared. This blog will serve as our virtual bulletin board, so you can keep up when you don’t have a chance to visit us at the bank.

The Midstate Bulletin Board Blog: The Argument Against Debit Card Fees

One of the biggest stories of the year in the banking industry (especially as it relates to consumers) is the introduction of debit card fees by some of the major banking institutions. It was an effort to gain additional money, and while the fee would be considered nominal on an individual level, the total amount that these institutions would earn would be significant.

There has been some outcry throughout the media, but the question is, Has there been repercussions? In general, the answer has been yes. Between grassroots campaigns, the success of events like Bank Transfer Day and estimates by industry experts, 2012 could see Big Banks lose billions of dollars in deposits.

More specifically, a recent survey by Mintel Comperemedia indicated that only 19% of consumers would be willing to pay a $2 a month fee for the right to use a bank’s debit card, while 56% said they would use another payment method instead. Additionally:

• 24% reported that they would switch banks over a $2/month fee.
• 29% of individuals surveyed for a separate study said they had heard of Bank Transfer Day
• 13% actually transferred banks (and 8% planned to do so).

Statistics like this are the reason that banks like Bank of America, which was the poster-child for the new fees, rescinded their fee structure in November.

As a community bank that is focused on making the lives of its customers a little easier in any way possible, we have not installed a fee of this sort. In our opinion, based on more than 120 years of working with the community of Baltimore to keep their money secure, it is not worth the risk of losing any customers that have remained loyal to us for such a small monetary gain. Some of the larger institutions have made this decision to charge fees for one primary reason: They didn’t believe consumers would take the time and effort to leave their current institution. We believe that our customers shouldn’t be taken for granted like that, and if this is a sentiment you agree with, pass this post on to friends, family, neighbors and coworkers and let them know that there are financial institutions that are working for you, not against you.

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Customers of the Midstate Federal Savings and Loan Association all know about our famous bulletin board, where local and industry news is shared. This blog will serve as our virtual bulletin board, so you can keep up when you don’t have a chance to visit us at the bank.

The Midstate Bulletin Board Blog: Putting the “Community” in “Community Bank”

As 2011 comes to an end, it is the time of year we all reflect on the past 11 months and develop a conclusion on whether the year was good or not. Often, we weigh everything from health to successes to major purchases in the equation, with the final output being either a “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down”.

This is also this time of year in which many people take the time to give back to those in need in an effort to end those people’s years on a higher note than expected, and hopefully start the next year off with some momentum.

Unfortunately, this year has been harder on people than most, and according to a recent Baltimore Sun article, the Baltimore area – like many places across the country – are seeing a down year for charitable donations and are not expecting to meet the demand of requests they have received. Baltimore’s Salvation Army Chapter Director put it best when describing the community:

“They are in the mood to give and want to be generous, but sometimes, they just can’t.”

Over the past several weeks at Midstate, we held both a Food Drive and a Toys for Tots drive at our branch in an effort to give some families in the area the ability to have a better-than-expected holiday season. We did it because, as a community bank, we feel that any chance we have to help the community, we should make an effort to do so. Both staff and customers of MidState have been donating what they could (and in some cases, a little extra) to help those that are less fortunate in the Greater Baltimore area. Drives like this took place in businesses across the region, and more are ongoing throughout the next couple weeks

So, for those that aren’t able to bring in a food item or toy (or those that did and would like to give more), we urge you  make an effort to give what you can to those in need, whether it is in the form of money, services or time. For a list of just some of the charities in the Baltimore area, click here.

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Customers of the Midstate Federal Savings and Loan Association all know about our famous bulletin board, where local and industry news is shared. This blog will serve as our virtual bulletin board, so you can keep up when you don’t have a chance to visit us at the bank.