Southern Bancorp

From our mission to our markets, Southern Bancorp is a unique financial institution that was founded to help strengthen underserved communities through financial access and investment. By combining traditional banking and lending services with financial development tools ranging from credit counseling to public policy advocacy, Southern Bancorp helps underserved families and communities grow financially stronger – regardless of zip code.

Thirty years ago, some of rural America’s most underserved and distressed communities gained an economic development partner when visionaries such as Bill Clinton, Rob Walton, Mack McLarty, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and others formed the Southern Development Bank Corporation, today known as Southern Bancorp.

With an initial investment of approximately $10 million, and a mission to create economic opportunity, Southern Bancorp, Inc., along with community and business leaders, has grown to become one of the largest community development organizations in the United States, as well as a model for an entire industry of mission-focused financial institutions known as Community Development Financial Institutions or CDFIs. Today, Southern Bancorp is a $1.6 billion asset organization with over 65,000 customers and over 50 branches located primarily in underserved markets in the Mid-South.

Southern’s focus is on growing its impact and influence through responsive, responsible, and innovative product delivery to the un/underbanked, as well as developing strategic partnerships that help broaden its impact far beyond its physical market borders such as with the CDFI Fund and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV).