PSB celebrating 90 years!

Elma - This year Peoples Savings Bank (PSB) in Elma is celebrating 90 years in business. PSB has always been a community bank with a focus on serving agriculture and the Elma area. 

“A lot has changed in 90 years of banking but I hope the one thing that hasn’t changed is that we serve our customer’s financial needs with excellent customer service and competitive products,” says Bruce Weigel, current President at Peoples Savings Bank, who has been employed at PSB since 1983. 

“With technology and the depth of our staff we have been able to expand our services and reach customers living farther away from Elma and who aren’t able to come into the bank as frequently. The thing that has probably changed the most in my 34 years here has been the technology and the internet. Technology has changed the way we do our jobs. We still are providing many of the same types of services today as in the past but technology has allowed us to give that information to you much quicker and in more detail. To think where we are today is amazing, considering that when I graduated from college in 1981, a personal computer wasn’t even in our thoughts. We bought our first computer here at the bank in 1988. Today it is next to impossible to run our business without them,” shared Weigel.                             

Since inception PSB has remained an independent bank dedicated to the financial well-being of agriculture. “Today we have $69 million in assets and have four loan officers serving our Ag customers which represents 74 percent of our total loans. Many of our depositors have ties to agriculture,” shared Weigel. Most recently PSB was recognized as a top producing agricultural lender in the country. PSB was rated 11th in the country amongst bank lenders (with 500 million or less in Ag loans) with the highest dollar-value percentage of Ag loans to assets in 2016 and earned solid ratings from Kroll Bond Rating Agency. 

In addition to Ag loans PSB also offers business, commercial, consumer, and real estate loans along with a variety of deposit products including Internet Banking, Mobile Banking and Mobile Deposit. We also offer Remote Deposit Capture for our business and agriculture customers. We offer great customer service to all and are happy to have you come in the bank to conduct your business also.

PSB strives for excellent personalized and professional customer service with an emphasis on close relationships with all our customers. We accomplish this by having friendly, well trained, strongly motivated, customer oriented, community minded professional staff. Our employees are actively involved in and provide leadership in the community for the betterment of the greater Elma area.

Throughout history the stockholders have been people who recognized the importance of having a community bank to serve our community and often they were local area farmers or business owners. Most recently, in 2006 the bank was purchased by a group of local investors led by Bruce Weigel. Most of the stockholders are local with strong ties to agriculture. PSB survived the Great Depression in the 1930’s and the farm crisis in the 1980’s. “We have seen a lot of small banks sell out to bigger banks in recent years. That is not something we want to see happen with PSB,” shared Weigel.  He went on to add that bank management and stockholders have made plans that should enable PSB to remain an independent community bank well into the future.

To celebrate their 90 year anniversary PSB will be hosting a fun night in the Elma Park on Friday, July 21st from 4:30-7:30 p.m. which will include food and entertainment. They have also been sharing more information on their history in their monthly newsletter which can be found at www.psbiowa.com/newsletter and collecting historical memorabilia which is currently on display at PSB at 328 Main Street in Elma. For more information on Peoples Savings Bank please go to www.psbiowa.com, call 641-393-2301 or stop by.