Benefits of ‘sustainable’ banking demonstrated in report

Sunrise Community Banks of St. Paul, Minn., is part of a small group of banks that make up the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, which has released analysis showing "sustainable" banks lend more, attract more deposits and have stronger capital than the world's largest, "systemically important" banks..Sunrise Community Banks, headed by David Reiling, is made up of University National Bank, St. Paul, Park Midway Bank, St. Paul, and Franklin National Bank, Minneapolis. The Global Alliance consists of 22 banks and credit unions around the world; 17 of them participated in the analysis, entitled: "Strong and Straightforward: The Business Case for Sustainable Banking." Sunrise Community Banks is the only U.S. banking organization represented in the 17 participating financial firms..The analysis reports that during the last decade the sustainable bank group had a higher loan-to-assets ratio than the world's largest banks and a comparable group of community banks across the country. During the same period of time, the sustainable banks had a higher average equity-to-assets ratio than the systemically important banks, but a lower ratio than the comparable community bank group..The sustainable banks generally had a higher return on assets during the last decade than the systemically important banks, but slightly lower return than recorded by the comparable community banks. The large bank group surpassed the sustainable banks and the community banks on return on equity..Over the course of the last decade, the sustainable bank group had higher growth in loans, deposits, assets, equity and total income than the group of large banks.."The point of the analysis is to demonstrate that you can do well and do good at the same time," Reiling commented..Reiling said he got involved with the Global Alliance for Banking on Values about a year ago after attending a conference the group hosted in Vancouver. Reiling said that because of the bank's commitment to serve the Somali community, it has frequently had the opportunity to interact with international counterparts. In addition, Sunrise Community Banks is a community development bank, which aligns its business philosophy with the other members of the Global Alliance..Reiling said he likes the Global Alliance because while the organization values a commitment to the greater good, it also acknowledged the importance of profitability.