Banking in the public interest
Learn why public banking offers significant benefits to our community.
The Rochester Public Banking Coalition (or ROCPublicBank) believes public money should work for the public good, not private gain. We have grown accustomed to placing our public dollars in banks that extract wealth from low-income communities and neighborhoods of color, perpetuating racial and economic inequality.
Through a public bank, Rochester can support vital sectors of our local economy such as affordable housing, infrastructure, and small business loans, and divest from banks that are financing destructive corporate interests, including speculative real estate, private prisons and the fossil fuel industry.
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First, we are pushing to pass the New York Public Banking Act which will establish a framework to create municipal public banks. Next, we will create a framework locally to establish a municipal public that will serve the community of Rochester.
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"This is a Dollar:" Public Banking Explainer Video from New Economy Project
Case Study:
Bank of North Dakota
Established 1919
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Owned by North Dakotan taxpayers and chartered to serve North Dakotans rather than shareholders
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Nearly $8 billion in assets under management (AUM)
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2009: Following the banking crisis of 2008, North Dakota was the only state sporting a major budget surplus. It had the lowest unemployment, foreclosure and default rates in the country. It also had the most community banks per capita, confirming that the presence of a state-owned bank has helped rather than hurt its local banking sector. -- Public Banking Institute's "History of Public Banking"
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16 year streak of record-breaking profits, only disrupted by 2020 COVID pandemic. Read Bank of North
Dakota's most recent Annual Report
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"Bank of North Dakota, a century-old public bank has been credited with helping North Dakota small businesses secure more PPP loans, per capita, than small businesses in any other state. [North Dakota small businesses] secured more PPP funds, relative to the state’s workforce, than their competitors in any other state — more than $5,000 per private-sector worker as of May 8" - Washington Post analysis.
“Compare that with the experience in the U.S., where banks came under fire for prioritizing their wealthy customers for Paycheck Protection Program loans." - "The public bank New York City needs," NY Daily News, 11/22/21
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“They were really expeditious and efficient,” said Robert Hockett, a Cornell Law School professor and a veteran of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “There was no leakage — the sort of ridiculous fee-charging that tends to happen when you do it through larger banking entities.” He added later that because Bank of North Dakota is a public institution, “it isn’t really designed to maximize revenue lines by finding as many places to assess fees or brokerage charges as possible.” - Washington Post analysis