Greensboro now has a community bank.

Carolina State Bank held the grand opening of its headquarters at 3202 Northline Avenue beside Friendly Shopping Center on Thursday, Feb. 21.

The banks that had been headquartered in Greensboro have been gobbled up by bigger banks which left Greensboro without a single bank calling Greensboro home.

According to co-chairman of the Carolina State Bank Board of Directors Don Vaughan this is the first new bank to open in Greensboro since 2008.  Vaughan’s co-chairman is Dr. Lenny Peters.

The ribbon cutting on Thursday was held up for a few minutes because Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan was hobnobbing with Gov. Roy Cooper at the celebration to mark the addition of 10 electric busses to the Greensboro Transit Authority’s fleet.  6thDistrict Congressman Mark Walker was also at the electric bus event, but he made it to the grand opening of Carolina State Bank a little sooner.  It seems that either Walker did less hobnobbing or drove faster.

Carolina State Bank is a division of Blue Ridge Bank of Luray, Virginia, a small town bank that recently expanded into Charlottesville and Harrisonburg. Blue Ridge Bank has $438 million in assets and this is its first venture into North Carolina.

The tagline on Carolina State Bank’s website is “Other banks have customers. We help neighbors.”  And that was the theme of the grand opening with the emphasis on this being a hometown bank.

Carolina State Bank is a full service bank with all the bells and whistles of the big banks, but with a local touch, according to Vaughan.

The Board of Directors for the newest member of Greensboro’s banking community includes City Councilmember Justin Outling who is a partner at the Brooks Pierce law firm, attorney Carolyn Woodruff, Dawn Chaney, and Jed McMillan vice president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership.

13thDistrict Congressman Ted Budd who is on the House Financial Services Committee explained last year that a lot of people didn’t understand the banking reforms passed by Congress, and incorrectly said that it would help the large financial institutions.  But Budd said actually the opposite was true and the changes Congress made would make community banks viable again.  It looks like Budd knew what he was talking about.