Family tradition: Bank Independent going strong after 75 years

SHEFFIELD — Perhaps no industry has faced more existential challenges over the past 20 years than the American banking system.

From the millennium bug to disruptive technology, economic turmoil, mass banking consolidation and a pandemic, how then has Bank Independent, North Alabama’s fastest growing, family-owned community bank survived with barely a glitch for over 75 years?

By a process Macke Mauldin, Bank Independent’s president and CEO, calls humble, hungry, and smart.

By seamless, in-sync personal service they call “high tech and high touch.”

By investing in the communities where they have a presence, and by providing consistent servant leadership.

From the time Mauldin’s grandfather and a group of farmers started the Bank of Leighton in 1947 after the town’s only bank moved to Fort Payne overnight, four generations of Mauldins have unwaveringly implemented those four concepts.

“The Bank of Leighton, and now Bank Independent, was founded on the premise of serving the community,” said Mauldin. “Our motto is ‘Built to serve, not to sell’, or, in other words, our bank does not seek to monetize our customers.

“We were built with a single purpose – to provide a service to our customers. And that’s what we have done for 75 years, that is what we are doing now, and that is what we will continue to do for 75 more years.”

When Macke’s father took over Bank Independent, he made it a priority to get all the team members in their right seat on the bus.

Then when Macke’s oldest brother, Fennel, now retired, took over from their father, he had a knack for building internal structures. Fennel continued in their father’s footsteps to not only put people in positions where they could best benefit the organization, but by playing to everyone’s strengths so each team member’s career benefitted from it too.

The middle brother, Preuit Mauldin, is executive vice president and specializes in credit administration and loans; while Macke’s skills are more out and about in the community, speaking to community groups and being involved in community activities.

“All three of us get along very well,” Macke said. “My middle brother also enjoys technology, which has been instrumental in building up our tech capabilities.

“I try to be the ‘Thank you’ guy to all 650 Bank Independent team members, and I really try to express my gratitude to them all for the work they do every day.”

But it’s even deeper than that, he said.

“We seek to provide exceptional customer service every opportunity we can, whether it is on the phone, in person, digitally, by computer, or by mobile devices like cellphones and iPads,” Mauldin said.

And the proof it works is in the results, he said.

Last week, a customer approached Macke at church to tell him about an incident in which he was trying to transfer some money from his credit union to his BI account.

“His credit union told him he would have to do it himself,” Mauldin said. “He said our representative called him with a solution within 30 minutes, saving him two hours of back and forth.

“‘You don’t get that kind of service anywhere else,’ the customer said, but customers tell me stories like that all the time about our team, and what they do every day.”

Of course, there have been struggles but Mauldin said when you hire people who care about each other, care about the organization, and care about customers, then whatever the situation, everyone steps right up to the table.

During the Y2K scare, BI spent much of 1999 running seminars, speaking out in the community about the potential “millennium bug,” and testing all their systems.

“Our technology people did a great job,” he said. “We even opened for two hours on New Year’s Day so people could reassure themselves by checking their balance.”

During the recession of 2008-10, they pulled together a talented loan team to manage their loan program.

“We make loans based off facts and numbers,” Mauldin said. “We don’t make loans based on what may happen. We look at true value, true cash flow, not a bunch of betting on the future.

“There were some sleepless nights because it came down to just three problematic loans. We had plenty of capital and plenty of cash. We escaped practically unscathed by the recession.”

Fast forward to the pandemic.

“In 2020, we had a COVID meeting at 10 a.m. and then sent everyone home,” Mauldin said. “I thought, ‘How are we going to run the organization?’”

The BI technology team once again came through to connect more than 300 team members through virtual private networks so they could work from home.

When it was discovered many team members did not have enough Internet bandwidth to work from home, the IT team got together and ordered MyWiFi cards for those who needed them and sent everybody home with a computer.

“We had been investing in technology for years, building up our infrastructure so during the pandemic we did okay,” he said.

Another problem was the Paycheck Protection Program.

“A lot of people said they were not going to do it because no one knew what the Small Business Administration was going to do,” Mauldin said. “At first, there were no rules and then the rules changed every day, so as a team, we chose to take the SBA at its word.

“We decided to honor that program and do it for all our customers, whoever needed it, and we would figure it out day by day.

“Within 10 days, we made our first PPP loan. Overall, we did nearly 7,000 PPP loans for $130 million and all but about $1 million has been repaid.”

Bank Independent has three locations in Madison County under construction: Hays Farm in South Huntsville; downtown Huntsville; and County Line Road in Madison.

“We stick with what we know and that is people and customer service at all costs,” Mauldin said. “When you hire the right people, the humble, hungry and smart want to do good for themselves, the bank and the community.”