Empowering legislative leaders to navigate the financial, legal, regulatory, and strategic course of launching successful publicly-owned banks.

Public banks for good

Municipal and State governments depend on profit-focused private capital markets to help them finance community investments. In doing so, they ignore the great economic advantage available of financing themselves through their own bank.

Whether for infrastructure, stimulating new sectors of the local economy, generating affordable housing or invigorating strategic plans, public banks are designed to produce good for the whole community.

Hundreds of years and hundreds of publicly-owned banks have proven this all around the world.

Public banks are unparalleled civic financial tools that leverage community dollars for more stable local economies, resilience for economic downturns and unexpected civic crises.

Public projects of note
Award winning public projects as examples. Photos courtesy Architizer.

Expert Advisors

Public Banking Associates is the nation’s only consultancy exclusively dedicated to public banking.

Our consortium of bankers, economists and public policy experts have helped guide public banking initiatives around the country and the world. These experiences enable PBA to bring exclusive and broad-ranging capabilities to the unique circumstances and conditions of community and state governments and to support officials engaged in any step of the bank iteration process.

Some of these steps include navigating the rocky waters of fiscal and regulatory requirements, creation of bank business plans, de novo initiatives, bank acquisition strategies, government agency collaborations and reconfiguring existing fiscal management methodologies to maximize financial efficiencies.

We work with legislative bodies to create public banks that work to support the local economy

Many legal and financial challenges must be addressed within any business plan to implement a public bank — a potentially daunting challenge for government officials. Banking fundamentals and constraints, risks, and prospects all need to be addressed. Clearly assessing and presenting the necessary aspects and prospects helps facilitate the understanding and buy-in of both public and private stakeholders.

  • Market Analysis
  • Financial Analyses
  • Operational Projections and Impacts
  • Project Methodologies
  • Systems and Resource Development
  • Mission and Management
  • Administrative Analysis
  • Management Training

While municipalities and state governments share similar managerial and legal frameworks, obligations, and business mechanisms, each has its own set of functional and political realities. PBA begins with a comprehensive view of the public bank project and its prospect, determining:

  • What the bank is intended to do — its Mission?
  • What key assets are available?
  • What assets are hidden?
  • What is the composition and trajectory of liabilities and other obligations?

Along the way, we evaluate a host of additional concerns to help shape the most effective plan to move forward.

  • Political Analysis
  • Assessments of Concept Viability
  • Stakeholder Strategies and Engagement
  • Institutional Systems Integration
  • Examination of constitutional or policy constraints
  • Banking and treasury department evaluations
  • Evaluation of fiscal conditions and obligations
  • Project Oversight and Management
  • Special Focuses and Service Strategies
  • Public Presentations

Our team understands both banking and public banking

Our unique international consortium of bankers, CDFI executives, financial officers, academics, community finance, and development experts has an array of real-world successes under their collective belts to apply to today’s challenges, plus the vision to see the good that public banks can bring to communities.

Real world successes of our faculty of advisors

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Amanda Lee
CEO & Founder Crix
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Adam Cheise
Director at Dynamic
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Catherine Gilbert
Director at Initech
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