Except for a three-year detour into a commerical bank, when we bought/built this farm for one year, and were tied up in litigation with its builder for two after that, I'd say we've always borrowed from Farm Credit, when borrowing.
As for banking, we always used a regional bank that started in our area back home, my father knew the owner very well. They had no branches here in NC, and it got to be too far to drive there for deposits and routine in-branch business - closest was 30-some miles away - before electronic banking took hold.
We moved to BB&T locally, a huge bank in the Southeast. At the same we beat that builder in court, we moved all of our business wherever we wanted it to go, around late 1996.
Have stayed with them ever since...really like their people and the bank has been great to work with, even though it's "too big," I guess. It was one that needed no bailout, and actually bought some failing banks, I think.
If I knew then what I know now, I'd never have taken a commercial bank loan, and certainly not from the little crook who wrote ours. She ended up caught in some bad stuff, right after I had a heart-to-heart conversation with her boss, and had to give the bank (Centura then, now RBC acquired) her home to stay out of jail. Farm Credit, by comparison, has never given me a minute's concern as to ethics.
