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NEW YORK – The New York office of mortgage banking company Merchants Capital today announced that it has provided approximately $1.2 billion in debt financing during 2020 for affordable housing preservation and development within the region, ranking Merchants as a top multifamily affordable housing financer in the New York area. The milestone reflects Merchants Capital New York’s steep growth trajectory due to its ever expanding and diverse base of offerings, including on-book, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and FHA loan products. Merchants’ lending volume extends to a broad swath of affordable projectives, including acquisition, preservation and new construction loans for 4%, 9%, Section 8, public, supportive, and mixed-income housing projects. “As an affordable housing lender, our core mission revolves around ensuring that capital is deployed to much-needed public benefit projects in the region,” said Mathew Wambua, Merchants Capital Vice Chair & Head of Agency Lending. “I would be remiss if I did not thank our clients, our incomparable public and governmental counterparts, as well as our entire team of dedicated affordable housing and finance professionals at Merchants Capital, for their tireless work and boundless creativity. With the challenges 2020 brought, we are grateful for this achievement and are looking forward to a brighter 2021 together.” Merchants Capital New York is one of Merchants’ four production hubs nationwide, in addition to Indianapolis, Chicago and Saint Paul. This announcement follows the launch of Merchants Capital’s tax credit syndication platform, a new business unit that infuses private equity from institutional investors into Low Income Housing Tax Credit multifamily housing projects. To learn more about Merchants Capital and its services, visit www.merchantscapital.com or find Merchants Capital on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Merchants Bank of Indiana is committed to the communities we serve.  In 2018, we launched the MPACT Program to foster and support our corporate initiative of Positively Advancing Communities Together through employee volunteer service hours. With the launch of the MPACT Program, we wanted to encourage and foster the ideals of community service and adopted a new culture of volunteerism by donating both time and resources to encourage our employees to get more involved and make an “MPACT” in the communities where they live, work and play.  Each Merchants employee is awarded 16 PTO hours per year to use towards local volunteer services. In keeping with the mission and core values of Merchants Bank and its employees, involvement within our communities is focused on advancing affordable housing, connecting people in their communities, promoting and improving education and financial literacy, stimulating community and economic development, and supporting the interests of employees and customers. Last month, we hosted the first-ever MPACT Awards to recognize our dedicated employees and thank them for their valued service. We named four 2018 MPACT Catalyst winners.  These individuals were selected from various markets for making an impact in the program or creating a change in the mindset for volunteer efforts. Aretha Hutchins (Merchants Capital, Carmel) Kelley Leix (Merchants Bank, Carmel) Dinese Watson (Merchants Bank, Lynn) Josh Canan (Merchants Capital, Saint Paul) We also recognized Angela Mazura (Merchants Mortgage, Carmel) as our 2018 Volunteer of the Year and awarded her with a surprise $1,000 check for her incredible efforts as a mentor for a future homeowner through Habitat for Humanity of Greater Indianapolis.         Over the course of 2018, our team members joined together for a variety of activities where groups of volunteers could participate.  This included the MPACT Service Day to preserve, enhance and develop high-quality affordable housing in Indianapolis’ best neighborhoods, a Habitat for Humanity home rehabilitation project, and a backpack give-away for IPS students in Indianapolis through Indy Backpack Attack and Partners in Housing. We also provided meals at St. Vincent House for families with seriously ill family members experiencing financial hardship, adopted several families to provide Thanksgiving meals and Christmas presents, and collected donations for the Horizon House – just to name a few. In 2018, more than 50 employees logged a total of 520 volunteer hours in the communities we serve. Nearly 400 of those hours were put towards Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) community development in Indianapolis, and another 41 hours were dedicated to CRA community development in Lynn, Indiana. CRA is federal regulation designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

Raymond James has announced the winners of the 2018 Raymond James Community Bankers Cup. We are delighted that Merchants Bancorp has been recognized as a 2018 winner. The award recognizes the top 10% of community banks based on various profitability, operational efficiency, and balance sheet metrics. The pool of banks considered for recognition includes all exchange-traded domestic banks, excluding mutual holding companies and potential acquisition targets, with assets between $500 million and $10 billion as of December 31, 2018. Congratulations to all of our wonderful employees for making it another year of outstanding performance. For more information...investors.merchantsbankofindiana.com