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Farm Credit Services of Western Arkansas
Maximizing our customers’ financial success.
Farm Credit Hands Out Millions
Farm Credit
Services of Western Arkansas (FCS) will distribute a record- setting $5.1
million in patronage refunds to its member-customers for 2007. Checks will begin
to be customer’s hands starting February 25, 2008. FCS began paying patronage
refunds in 1997 and this year marks the 11th consecutive year that
the local cooperative has returned a portion of its profits back to FCS
customers.
Patronage refunds
to FCS customers across western Arkansas now total more than $41.3 million for
the past eleven years. Farm Credit is a member-owned and locally-controlled
cooperative association.
According to Glen
Manchester, President/CEO, Farm Credit Services of Western Arkansas’ mission is
to maximize their customers’ financial success. “We believe we are
accomplishing this mission when we meet the needs of our member-customers, build
and maintain a financially strong company, and distribute a portion of the
cooperatives’ earnings in patronage refunds.”
Patronage refunds
are a way of distributing a portion of FCS’s net income to member-borrowers.
Refunds are based on the proportion of interest paid on their loan, to total
interest earned. According to Board Chairman Kevin Crumpacker, “Patronage
refunds benefit the borrower by reducing their effective cost of borrowing
money. As a part of our mission we not only want to help customers make money,
we want them to save money when it comes to the cost of borrowing money.”
Crumpacker goes
on to say, “Being able to sustain an 11-year record of returning patronage
checks to our member-owners really says something about the success of Farm
Credit Services of Western Arkansas. Besides dealing with a lender whose only
commitment is financing agriculture and those desiring the rural lifestyle, our
customers benefit even more by saving on interest cost and sharing in Farm
Credit’s profits.” Crumpacker concludes, “Most businesses, and even commercial
banks, return their profits to their investors, not their customers.”
Farm Credit Services of Western
Arkansas serves a 41-county region of western Arkansas with 19 branch
locations. More than 4,300 farmers, ranchers, rural home-owners and
agribusinesses will share in receiving patronage refunds for 2007 on
approximately $730 million in loans outstanding. CEO Manchester sums it up this
way, “Farm Credit is proud of its 90-year cooperative heritage in serving
agricultural producers and rural America.”
For more
information regarding patronage refunds, contact your local Farm Credit branch
office at 1-800-444-FARM, or visit us on-line at
www.myaglender.com.
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