Yelp deposits $ 10 million in black-owned banks
Yelp today announced that it is filing $ 10 million in three black-owned banks across the country to help further support underserved communities.
New York-headquartered Carver Federal Savings Bank and Tennessee-headquartered Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company will each receive $ 2.5 million from Yelp. The Broadway Federal Bank, headquartered in California, will receive $ 5 million as it will soon merge with City First Bank in Washington, DC
“We know that financial services or access to financial services and access to capital are not evenly distributed in the United States,” said David Schwarzbach, chief financial officer of Yelp. CNBC do it. “And at Yelp, our mission is to bring together consumers with great local businesses and support a vibrant local community.”
At present, there are 143 minority depositories in the United States, according to government data. This includes banks where at least 51% of its voting shares are minority people, or banks that primarily serve minority communities with a board of directors made up mostly of minority people. Of these 143 banks, only 18 are owned by blacks, a number that is half of the 36 banks owned by blacks which existed 15 years ago.
Schwarzbach, who has spent time in his career helping provide financial services to underbanked and unbanked communities before joining Yelp earlier this year, says the company’s latest investment is part of its commitment to deliver. fair opportunities for black-owned businesses and black-owned financiers. establishments.
“All of these banks have been working for decades and we wanted to support their mission,” Schwarzbach explains, explaining why they specifically chose these three banks. “They have shown their ability to support communities in their area and their commitment to supporting low and moderate income communities and supporting black-owned businesses.”
Carver Federal Savings Bank, which has been in existence for 74 years, has maintained its mission of providing clients of all income levels with access to loan capital and financial education with 74% of its loans going to low to moderate income communities. . During the pandemic, the bank also played a critical role in supporting black-owned businesses by providing $ 35 million in access to capital to local businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. According to reports, experts feared that up to 90% minority and women-owned businesses would be excluded from PPP lending because many of these businesses are underbanked, leaving them little room to access lending from a traditional bank that priority existing customers.
In a statement, Carver revealed that Yelp’s $ 2.5 million deposit would help the company accelerate its mission of serving low to moderate income communities in the New York City area.
The Citizens Savings Banks, which have been in existence since 1904, provide financial opportunities to underserved communities in the Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee areas. This year alone, the bank has funded over $ 1 million in loans to local small businesses, with Yelp’s recent filing helping the financial institution continue its mission of economic growth and financial education to members of the local community. .
The Broadway Federal Bank, founded in 1946, revealed in a statement that Yelp’s $ 5 million deposit would help the financial institution “meet the critical need for affordable housing for low to moderate income communities, by putting the ‘focus on loans for multi-family housing within Los Angeles communities. “
Already, Broadway is partnering with many organizations and the City of Los Angeles to help reduce the number of local unbanked residents by encouraging more banking locations in underserved communities. Additionally, the bank works with low- and moderate-income individuals, people with disabilities, elderly residents, and limited English-speaking residents to provide them with free tax assistance when preparing their tax returns.
Customer Tamara Jenkins tries on a hat with Meeka Robinson Davis, owner of One-Of-A-Kind Hats, at the store in the Windsor Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles on November 24, 2020.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
Yelp’s $ 10 million deposit at these banks follows the increased visibility of black-owned businesses earlier this year by adding a search feature that allows businesses to identify themselves as black-owned so they can be easily found on Yelp. Platform. As a result, Yelp claims to have seen search rates for black-owned businesses increase 35 times over last year.
To further show its commitment to supporting black-owned businesses, Yelp has also partnered with the 15% commitment to ensure that at least 15% of its event providers are black-owned. Likewise, Yelp created a Latinx-owned search attribute to help amplify Latinx-owned businesses and the company has partnered with Latino moment, a coalition of Latinx activists and leaders, to help better understand the needs and challenges of the Latinx community.
Miriam Warren, senior vice president of Engagement, Diversity and Belonging at Yelp, says partnering with these organizations helps Yelp “really connect with these communities and ensure that [they] faithfully represent these communities “in the best way.
In addition to its external efforts to help further support black and brown communities, Warren points out that Yelp has also made internal improvements to its employee population. As of September 30, 26.8% of Yelp employees identify as an under-represented minority, including Blacks, Latinos or Native Americans. This number is an increase of 13.6% over the same period last year.
Warren attributes this growth to new anti-bias trainings, employee resource groups, and reporting processes in which senior leaders report diversity data at monthly meetings to ensure they “don’t just keep on. diversify the organization, but ensure that leadership is also representative of the organization as a whole. “
“You can measure engagement in different ways, and representation is obviously part of that,” she adds. “But, I think the key thing that we have also learned this year is that we can use our platform to raise awareness, promote economic opportunities and support our local communities.”
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