Longtime Jax banker helping launch conservative-focused digital bank (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — A longtime Jacksonville banker is one of the executives involved in the creation of a new digital bank — one that promises to be the “first chartered bank to openly support America, its flag, freedom, patriotism, the military and first responders.”
Bennett Brown was president of Jacksonville-based American Enterprise Bank and CNB National Bank and market president of The Heritage Bank during a community banking career stretching over five decades.
He will now be senior regulatory officer at Old Glory Bank, an institution that counts former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, talk show host Larry Elders and musician John Rich as board members. Former Fox News co-president Bill Shine will serve as executive chairman.
Despite the nationally prominent names associated with the bank, it has the heart of a community bank, Brown told the Business Journal. “We’re going to be a bank that serves the middle class, the hard-working Middle Americans who are being looked over by the Chases and the Citibanks,” he said. “And we won’t cancel you.”
While Old Glory Bank will focus on digital banking, it is being formed through the acquisition of First State Bank, which was founded in 1903 in Elmore City, Oklahoma — a small town whose 1980 prom inspired the movie “Footloose.”
Old Glory expects to close on the purchase of First State on Nov. 30 and open to customers in the first quarter of 2023.
“With the aid of cutting-edge digital technology, we will ‘export’ this bank’s hometown values across the country,” Brown said in a statement announcing the launch
Building off that base, the new bank will focus on rolling out its digital operation, with the goal of spending the next three years building up a base of deposits. Phase II may include opening up branches and loan production offices.
The bank’s messaging revolves around two things: being a real bank — “not just an app” but an FDIC-insured, chartered bank — and its conservative bona fides, with its marketing material promising that “Old Glory Bank will never cancel law-abiding customers for their beliefs or for exercising their lawful rights.”
“We are the bank for Americans that other banks try to marginalize,” its marketing material says
That makes the bank a natural fit for businesses like gun stores concerned that larger banks don’t want to handle their transactions or depositors worried about having their accounts frozen over political issues, said Brown, who has long been a board member of the Florida Family Policy Council, an organization that has lobbied for restrictions on abortion and opposed the expansion of Jacksonville’s Human Rights Ordinance.
“Our whole focus is middle America, low to moderate income America,” Brown said. “It’s just people who respect America, love America, love what we stand for.”
Photo courtesy of Old Glory Bank