America Saves Week Comes to Mississippi and Arkansas
Financial emergencies don’t follow a schedule. Flat tires, leaky rooftops, or unexpected bills can pop-up without warning to disrupt your financial life, which is why Southern Bancorp and...
Latest news.
Updates, announcements, and stories about the work helping people and communities move forward.
Into the Light: A Survey of Arkansas Borrowers Seven Years after State Supreme Court Bans Usurious Payday Lending Rates
In 2009, the last Arkansas payday loan store closed for business. At the industry’s peak, three years earlier, payday lenders operated 275 stores across the Natural State. Arkansans...
Southern Bancorp Community Partners awarded $2 million by U.S. Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund
Award will extend financial development services and lending to families and businesses in economically-distressed markets Little Rock, Ark. – Southern Bancorp Community Partners (SBCP), a 501(c)(3) loan fund...
Turning Tax Time into Savings Time
When it comes to tax time, it’s probably safe to assume that most folks aren’t thinking about savings. But that’s exactly what we at Southern Bancorp had on...
Teaching Public Benefit Recipients How to Fish
How Arkansas can Lessen Reliance on SNAP & TANF and Support Economic Independence by Lifting Asset Limits Read Policy Points 42 here.
Rural Economic Mobility and Wealth Building
Despite the general economic recovery in the United States, income inequality and wealth inequality are expanding. Perhaps more critically, it is becoming more and more difficult for families...
New CFED data showing state of family economic security in Arkansas
This week, the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) released its annual Assets and Opportunity Scorecard. The Scorecard provides a comprehensive look at Americans’ capacity to accumulate wealth by...
Banking in Rural America: Insight from a CDFI
As a rural community bank and U.S. Treasury certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), Southern is fully aware of the importance of CDFIs in rural markets throughout the...
Strengthening the Case for Removing Asset Limits on SNAP & TANF: Results of DHS Asset Limits Study
In support of Southern’s mission to create economic opportunity and promote financial security, our policy team worked to pass legislation (Act 535 of 2013) during Arkansas’s 89th General...
New Poverty Measure Paints Different Picture of Poverty Rates in Arkansas and Mississippi
In October, the Census Bureau released the poverty rate based on the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). This snapshot of poverty in America, which varies somewhat from the standard official measure released in September,...