TIAA-CREF Expands Its Community Bank Deposit Investment Program
Bank Deposits Reach $49 Million at Six Prominent Community Banks Across the Country
New York, February 11, 2009
TIAA-CREF, the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, medical and cultural fields, announced today that it has more than doubled its Community Bank Deposit Investment Program to $49 million of FDIC insured deposits.
In 2007, TIAA-CREF’s Global Social and Community Investing Department first announced the Program placing its first $22 million in deposits with ShoreBank and ShoreBank Pacific, America’s first and largest community development bank. That relationship remains, and today TIAA-CREF welcomes six additional community banks into the Program including: Carver Federal Savings (New York, NY); City First Bank of DC; City National Bank of NJ (Newark, NJ); Mechanics and Farmers Bank (Durham, NC); Native American Bank (Denver, CO); and New Resource Bank (San Francisco, CA).
"Even in the current economic environment many community banks continue to thrive as they often have innovative solutions to help borrowers," said Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President and CEO of TIAA-CREF. "Under the direction of our Global Social and Community Investment Department, TIAA-CREF continues to make deposits in some of the country’s leading community banks as a small step towards helping unthaw the credit crisis in some underserved markets while seeking to earn competitive rates of return on our investments."
"Community and proactive social investing is a growing part of TIAA-CREF’s comprehensive approach to Socially Responsible Investing," said Scott Budde, Managing Director and head of TIAA-CREF’s Social & Community Investment Department. "We focus on opportunities where we have specialized expertise, as well as the ability to invest effectively and with the greatest possible impact from both a financial and social perspective. In doing so, we often collaborate with like-minded investors, foundations and development banks to seek market-based approaches that address critical social and environmental needs."
In selecting these institutions, TIAA-CREF worked closely with both the Calvert Foundation and the National Community Investment Fund (NCIF) to identify efficient institutions that needed funds at competitive rates in underserved geographic and business markets.
"As we celebrate our 60th Anniversary, Carver Bank is honored to receive a significant deposit from TIAA-CREF, a renowned global investor, trusted by teachers and others, to manage their retirement assets," said Deborah C. Wright, Chairman & CEO of Carver Bancorp, Inc. "This deposit will support our lending in New York City’s urban communities, where over 80 percent of our deposits are provided to real estate, non-profit and small business borrowers. We are delighted to accept this tangible vote of confidence from a leading member of the socially motivated sector."
The funding source for the investments is assets in the TIAA General Account. The $49 million in deposits is fully insured by the FDIC through the Certificate of Deposit Account Registration Service (CDARS) of Promontory Interfinancial Network of Washington, DC.1
TIAA-CREF’s Social & Community Investing department was created in May 2006 to focus on a series of investment programs and oversee the screening methodology used by the CREF Social Choice and the TIAA-CREF Social Choice Equity Funds. Other recent advancements in the social and community investing program include:
- The creation of a $100 million Global Microfinance Investment Program, the first investment of its kind by a major American institutional investor (September 2006), with announced investments in ProCredit Holding AG and Catalyst Microfinance Investors.
- The enhancement of CREF Social Choice including the addition of comprehensively screened international equities and enhanced environmental screening through KLD Research and Analytics. CREF Social Choice remains the largest comprehensively screened investment vehicle for individual investors in the US with $6,890.56 million (12/31/2008) and over 430,000 investors.2
- Ongoing expansion of the firm’s Corporate Social Real Estate program, which focuses on investments in affordable housing, workforce housing, urban and transit-oriented commercial development, and sustainable green development in underserved regions and market segments. As of December 2008, TIAA-CREF had an aggregate committed amount of approximately $582 million representing multiple investments in areas earmarked as Economic Development Areas and/or Lower to Moderate Income census tracts.
About Carver Federal Savings Bank
Founded on November 5, 1948, and named for agricultural researcher and scientist George Washington Carver, Carver formally began operations on 125th Street in Harlem, providing local residents a place to save and obtain mortgages to buy homes in their own communities on January 5, 1949. Now the largest African-American and Caribbean-American led bank in the United States, Carver continues its mission, providing banking services and by investing in its most precious resource, its customers. Carver channels its capital resources into underserved neighborhoods, investing over 80% of its deposits into the neighborhoods it serves. In February 1961, Carver opened its first branch in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and continued expanding its operations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens into the 1990s. On September 28, 2006 Carver successfully acquired Brooklyn-based Community Capital Bank to complement its savings and real estate lending with small business and non-profit lending across a 10-branch network. On October 24, 1994, Carver Bancorp, Inc. became a publicly traded company and on July 10, 2007 was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Carver Bancorp, Inc. is the holding company of Carver Federal Savings Bank.
About CDARS and Promontory Interfinancial Network
CDARS, a service of Promontory Interfinancial Network, was created in 2002 to help small banks compete more effectively with large money centers institutions. CDARS offers clients up to $50 million in Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, (FDIC) coverage and disperses these deposits among several different banks. Small community banks, like those mentioned above, join the CDARS network to "pool" their $100,000 FDIC coverage limits to attract larger depositors.
About TIAA-CREF
TIAA-CREF is a national financial services organization with more than $363 billion in combined assets under management (12/31/08) and the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. TIAA-CREF’s Social and Community Investing Department was formed in May 2006 to increase the Investment Management area’s focus on several aspects of socially responsible investing. Learn more about TIAA-CREF.
Media Contact:
Jennifer L. Compton, Sr Media Relations Officer, Corporate Media Relations
jcompton@tiaa-cref.org, 212 490-9000, ext. 3486 Cell: 917 597-8896
1 The claims paying ability of the General Account backs TIAA’s guarantees on insurance products, and is not an investment or insurance offering to the public.
2 Source: Social Investment Forum, 2007 Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United States. Based on assets under management among mutual funds and variable annuities that screen across multiple environmental, social and governance criteria (versus those that apply only product-specific screens such as alcohol and tobacco; among all mutual funds and variable annuity accounts categorized as "socially and environmentally screened," CREF Social Choice was the third largest).
You should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. Please call 877 518-9161, or go to www.tiaa-cref.org for a current prospectus that contains this and other information. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing.
The CREF Social Choice Annuity account is a variable annuity available through contracts issued by CREF. These contracts are designed for retirement or other long-term goals, and offer a variety of income options, including lifetime income. Payments from the variable annuity accounts [and mutual funds] are not guaranteed and will rise or fall based on investment performance.
Mutual funds do not offer the range of income options available through annuities.
Because its social screens exclude some investments, the CREF Social Choice Account and Social Choice Equity fund may not be able to take advantage of the same opportunities or market trends as accounts that do not use such criteria.
TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, LLC and Teachers Personal Investors Services, Inc., members FINRA, distribute securities products. Annuity products issued by TIAA (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association), New York, NY.
