Both the Amish and Mennonite communities have reached out to the Bank of Bird-if-Hand after bank mergers left them with no branch.

Lori A. Maley, the bank’s president and CEO, said where the old-fashioned buggies sidle up to the bank’s mobile branches, called the GELT (Money) Bus, are helping determine where brickand-mortar locations will be built. The bank operates four mobile bank branches serving 17 total locations.

When the GELT buses were launched, the bank went where the Amish are. “We looked for places that they frequent, such as the hardware store right next to our brick and mortar, Bird-in-Hand branches, Bird in Hand hardware. And then, we started to look for the hardware store in other com- munities like Honey Brook and Chester County, the shoe store, we look for the hay sales. So places that the Amish frequent, we try to do that,” Maley said.

She further explained, “One good thing about the bus is it kind of tells us where we're supposed to go. Like where do we put the permanent branches?”

Both the Amish and Mennonite communities have reached out to the Bank of Bird-in-Hand after bank mergers left them with no branch. “They actually invited us to come to lunch. So we said, look, we'll have lunch for you. And we had 30 Amish men and a couple Mennonite guys show up. That's telling you there's a need. So we've launched the bus up there, but now we're looking. We had some really great reception up there, but we're looking to put a permanent location and they're doing some renovations (in) a farmer's market. They're expanding the farmer's market and they're gonna put a Bird-in-Hand Bank office on the end of it,” Maley said.

Another effective marketing strategy is word-of-mouth, said Maley. “This is just an example. We have neighbors here and there's five brothers, two sisters. And so what you get is you get the brothers, and then you get the brothers' children. So one relationship might be 50 people. And, and that's kind of a little bit of word of mouth with the Amish. The church services are Sunday and they do have social meetings and they talk about it. And, that's how the bank really gained such success is the positive results that we've given them. And then they communicate back to other Amish.

Bird-in-Hand Bank runs four GELT buses. Maley said they’re intended to be more than rolling billboards with an ATM. At the time the first bus was launched, Bird-inHand Bank was relatively new: the first de novo bank in the nation after the 2008 financial crisis. The bank had limited capital, but a desire to reach out to an underbanked community.

“So, we started talking about it and said, you know, this could have great value for the Amish community. A lot of credit unions out in the western part of the country use them and some banks in rural areas.

So, we came up with, well, why don't we try this? What we could do is we could take one bus, our original bus and pretty much service 10 locations a week. So each location is considered a branch. We would go to one location in the morning, then travel to the next location and be there for the afternoon,” Maley said.

With the bank’s limited capital for investment, the bank executives knew this was a better solution for growth than attempting to build brick-and-mortar locations. “This actually worked out incredibly well,” Maley said.

Now the bank has more access to capital.

As of Dec. 31, 2022, Bank of Bird-in-Hand had total assets of approximately $1.132 billion, total deposits of approximately $894 million, total net loans of approximately $975 million, and total shareholders’ equity of approximately $115 million.

“You know, [the Amish] want a community bank, and I think that's really what's funded and really enhanced our growth because to go from a startup bank, now just over nine years old, we are over a billion dollars. It's all organic. None of it is acquisition. It's just pure organic growth,” Maley said.

Jim Caliendo, president & CEO of PWCampbell, a full-service firm offering design-build, branch experience, and consulting services to the financial industry, thinks Maley and her bank are on the right track.

“I think of it as an advantage,” Caliendo said about the market research. “It’s a mobile focus group. Banks used to build branches depending on where their board lives. Now its demographic studies. She’s getting research right then and there, so kudos. It’s a good thing.”

Caliendo offered practical advice for Bird-in-Hand Bank when it comes time to build a branch. “The buildability is critical in limiting risk. When buying land and a building with strict environmental laws and local authorities being so strict, you must do due diligence. Banks will [buy] 1.5 acres, do an investigation, and by the time they look at restrictions, it's a quarter acre and can’t use it.”

Of course, there’s more to dealing with the Amish than putting up hitching posts for the horses. A lot of the Amish are involved in agriculture and operate as small businesses. That in and of itself is not so complicated. Where issues arise are their reliance on self-insurance paid for out of collective Amish funds.

“When we opened the bank, the FDIC allowed us to put into our credit policy special purpose credit for this particular group of people,” Maley said. “Bill O'Brien, our chief lending officer, has been working with them for over 30 years. He understands what they need as far as a line of credit. You know, they need an agricultural loan. For example, dairy farmers and some of the tobacco farmers, the checks they get for selling tobacco are timed. So, there are times when they may want to pay down more of the loan. It’s written in the loan documents that there are certain things that are really specific to them and their businesses.”

Maley concedes this is a unique challenge. “You have to call the bishop and … make sure that they're a member of the church. And so there's a little bit of legwork. I mean, we've been doing it for so long, it's really not an issue for us. But, you know, you have [an outside bank] move into the area and it's completely foreign to them. They don't really want to deal with it. It's a couple extra steps. We've been able to jump in there and help those people and provide the loans that they need. In some of these families, Bill O’Brien knows the grandfather, the father and now, the next generation son. So, what you find with the Amish, it's almost exponential.”

Maley added, “It's fascinating that the people would not necessarily think of them as an underbanked community, but of course they are because they're difficult. I don't mean it in a negative way, but they're difficult customers. They need a little more hand holding.”

Originally, Bird-in-Hand Bank thought the Amish’s greatest needs would be commercial lending. What Maley said the bank discovered was a need for mortgages it hadn’t anticipated. “They could not get a mortgage in most places, so we fill that gap and we do mortgages. We’re kind of the only stop for them when they want a traditional mortgage. We do adjustable rate mortgages. And, we put them on the balance sheet,” Maley said.

Interestingly, the bank has to service the mortgages because the Amish properties are nonconforming and otherwise couldn’t qualify. The reason? They may not necessarily have electricity.