New online banking model to serve Native clientele
, 2023-01-26 15:54:57,
A new banking model created by and for the Native American community is set to go live this spring.
Totem offers the agility and efficiency of an online-only bank, but with the strength and reliability of a traditional bank. Its services are tailored to the needs of Native Americans, both as individuals and as tribal entities.
The company announced its launch in June 2022, and the Totem app will be ready for customers to create accounts in the next few weeks. The initiative already has secured $2.2 million in pre-seed funding.
“That makes me only the second Native American woman in the U.S. to ever raise a multimillion-dollar funding round, so that’s pretty cool,” said co-founder and CEO Amber Buker, Tulsa resident and a member of the Choctaw Nation.
Data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shows Native Americans are the most under-banked population in the nation. Nationwide, there are only about 20 Native American-owned banks and 45 credit unions with at least some measure of Native American ownership. Many of those institutions have only a few million dollars in assets, and they serve only a small, fixed geographical area.
The average distance between a Native American reservation and a bank is about 12 miles, nearly 20 times the average distance for other rural communities, according to FDIC data.
“You’ll actually see lots of check-cashing…
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