ZachIsHere

For most of my time spent in Springfield I banked with Great Southern. Nice people, seemed to do a really good job. Unfortunately it seems as though they are hurting. Arkansas National Bank (ANB Financial) was shut down by the FDIC. Great Southern had $35 million in loans made to ANB that were secured by ANB stock. They took a total loss on the stock! Great Southern lost $35 million in a matter of hours and in 2007 they only made $27 million.

A poster from a message board I frequent had this experience to tell…

I spoke to a builder friend from there that had all his construction loans there at ANB. He had to get an appointment to get into the bank yesterday to see if funds would be available to keep his projects going. People are only allowed in the bank if they have a scheduled appointment. They are escorted through the building and then back out of the building by armed guard. All builder’s accounts are frozen, meaning the five homes he has coming out of the ground are effectively stopped until further notice, bc no funds available. Was told that loans may not be purchased by another bank for up to six months. This means those houses will deteriorate and will be worth a lot less by the time funds are made available to him. This means more people (his crews) now out of work.

He also told me while in the bank, he saw a grown man with his head in his hands crying, bc he had lost $1 million dollars.

Hopefully Great Southern can keep the ship righted. I would think they could sustain this blow just based on the overdraft fees I gave them during my time in Springtown. However if the example below is a happening that occurs regularly at some point you have to wonder who the ringmaster of that circus is.

How I Made 21 Million Dollars (Via ZachIsHere.com Archives March ‘06)

The other night I was driving late and I stopped into an ATM to double check my balance. The little receipt printed out of the machine and what I saw on the small paper shocked me. My listed available balance was 21 million dollars. Go ahead, put these drinks on my tab.

Great Southern has been good to me as a bank. I got a kick out of this though.