Southern Bank opens branch at Three Rivers College

By Liz Ellis, Reporter

Southern Bank announced Tuesday the grand opening of their newest branch inside Three Rivers College, downstairs in the Westover Administration Building.

“I think it’s great because our bank is really involved with the community,” said Courtney Littrell, manager of the new bank. “We do a lot of community events, and this really gets us out there.”

The bank will be open 10 a.m.–2 p.m. during the week whenever Three Rivers is open. It will be closed on weekends and on vacations or days that the community college is closed.

“We have a lot of students who lead busy lives—a lot of them work and go to school and have families—and it makes everything much more convenient,” said Charlotte Eubank, Three Rivers chief financial officer.

“We have branches in a lot of the areas that students come from to attend Three Rivers like Van Buren, Doniphan, Kennett and Dexter,” said Kim Capp, Southern Bank chief operations officer. “We have branches in all those areas, so it makes sense.”

The new branch has been discussed since Southern Bank put in a bid for banking services at the community college in 2010. The extension was part of the bank’s proposal, and Three Rivers officials decided it made sense for their purposes.

“It benefits the college internally because we can make our daily deposits there instead of driving with a security escort,” Eubank said.

The bank will offer nearly all the same services to students and faculty as a typical bank. It will do cash transactions, deposits, cashier’s checks, money orders and account openings. The bank will not, however, have the capability to give loans.

“We don’t have the loan staff here, but we can always get them information and point them to the right people,” Littrell said.

Southern Bank also has plans for placing an ATM machine in the Bess Activity Center. The machine is expected to be installed sometime in the next month or so. A definitive location has not been selected yet.

In addition to Southern Bank’s Kasasa products—which are aimed at younger generations—the bank will also be implementing a program that will cut down on the fees associated with cash cards many students use for money from government grants.

“There are a lot of fees associated with those cards,” Capp said. “Right now, if they go to an ATM machine, they might get charged by the machine and the [company over] the cards. What we’re going to do is if they use any of our ATMs, we’re not going to charge them. It’s their money. And hopefully they’ll be able to open a checking account with us, and then they won’t have to pay anybody any money.”

Liz Ellis can be reached by emailing lizellis@semotimes.com or by calling 573-785-2200.