You’ve probably seen the headlines about Texas becoming America’s financial capital. The Texas Stock Exchange launches this year, JPMorgan has more employees in Texas than in New York, and Goldman Sachs is building a $500 million campus in the Metroplex.
Texas, by itself, is now the seventh-largest economy in the world (and closing fast on France).
The world is watching Texas, and that’s a good thing. Texas deserves this moment, and what’s happening in Dallas and the Metroplex is extraordinary.
But what those headlines miss is none of that happens without West Texas. The financial institutions relocating to Dallas didn’t choose Texas by accident.
They came because Texas has an economy and a business-friendly political climate worth moving to, and that economy was built by community banks financing the farms, ranches, and small businesses that make this state run.
I’ve spent the last 36 years of my banking career in West Texas, and I can tell you exactly how the foundation works. T
he wheat that feeds America gets planted because a farmer in the Panhandle of Texas has a relationship with a local banker who understands agriculture and knows that family’s operation.
The cattle that became the beef on dinner tables across the country gets raised because a rancher near Dimmitt can get an operating loan to raise and feed the cattle.
The oil field service company in Odessa or Seminole that keeps the Permian Basin producing gets its credit line from a community bank serving that region.
That’s not a feel-good story. It’s how the engine actually runs.
West Texas produces much of the cotton, corn, wheat, cattle, and oil that feeds, clothes and fuels our country and it’s largely financed by community banks.
That kind of lending requires relationships, local knowledge, and the willingness to make decisions based on more than a credit score.
An ag loan isn’t a transaction you can standardize or automate. It requires understanding of the agricultural cycle, the commodity markets and the input costs. It requires trust built over years, sometimes generations.
It also requires bankers who live in the communities they serve.
When a West Texas community bank makes a loan, that banker is going to see that customer at the grocery store, at church, and at high school athletic events.
There’s accountability and trust in that. You can’t replicate that from a headquarters a thousand miles away.
Here’s the bottom line: if you care about Texas’ role as a financial capital, you should care about what’s happening in West Texas.
The financial capital story isn’t just about Dallas or other metropolitan areas. It’s about the credit flowing through Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, and every small town in between.
The bankers moving to Texas from New York are coming because we built an economy worth moving to.
We built it with the kind of banking that requires local knowledge, long-term relationships, and bankers who answer to their neighbors.
That’s what community banking looks like. And if Texas is going to maintain its position as America’s financial capital, the foundation needs to stay strong.
That foundation is community banks doing the work we’ve always done – financing the farms, ranches, and small businesses that make the Texas economy work.
Texas’ moment on the global stage is well-deserved, and we’re excited about it. But it didn’t start in Dallas last year.
It started in towns like Plainview, Lamesa, and Childress, and it’s been building for generations.
R. Mark Bain is CEO of First United Bank, headquartered in Lubbock, Texas.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Banker says West Texas built economy that brought Wall Street south
Reporting by By R. Mark Bain, special for the Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
