‘We’re definitely about our customers and community’

Rich Palzewic

Staff

December 9, 2024

NORTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN – With nine branches throughout North Central Wisconsin, Prevail Bank recently celebrated 90 years of growth as a community-focused bank.

Part of the bank’s approach, Prevail President/CEO Nathan Quinnell said, is to be good stewards of the community – something he said has helped Prevail stick around for nine decades.

“We’re definitely about our customers, our community and everything else,” he said. “We don’t pay dividends out to shareholders or have large investors or anything like that. Whatever we make goes into our communities, our employees, our facilities, our technology or back into benefits for our customers. It’s a pretty neat structure.”

With branches in Wisconsin Rapids, Stevens Point, Marshfield, Baraboo, Owen, Eau Claire, Medford, Phillips and Wausau, Quinnell said Prevail “has stood the test of time.”

“Ninety years is a long time,” he said. “I can’t imagine what the bank has seen over that 90 years and all the changes. Between recessions and World Wars, and especially in North Central Wisconsin, the pace of change is amazing in the baking industry right now.”

Quinnell said there are several other reasons why he thinks Prevail has been around since 1934.

“To make it through the ups and downs of rates and recessions and everything else, we’ve maintained strong capital,” he said. “That strong capital is our buffer against risk. We’ve always had very high capital ratios – regulators love that – and that gives us that financial stability. For some reason, if we took a large loss or had multiple years of losses, this reserve would help us survive. We will not sacrifice capital. Other financial institutions that are a bit tighter with their capital may not be able to survive the hardships.”

Another reason for its decades-long success, Quinnell said, is how Prevail is set up.

“We are a mutual savings bank,” he said. “Another bank can’t just buy us (unless) we would start issuing shares. Our customers really are the owners – they don’t get a dividend, and there’s more of a barrier to acquisition. We don’t have shareholders to report to. I think our model works a little better.”

This model, backed with strong capital and Prevail’s willingness to invest in technology, Quinnell said, will continue to move the bank forward into the future.

What does Prevail Bank offer?

Quinnell, who has served as the financial institution’s president/CEO since 2021, said Prevail is a full-service bank.

“We do both savings and loans concentrated on the consumer,” he said. “That might be residential mortgages, personal savings accounts, CDs and checking. At a lot of our branches, we have commercial lenders, so we’re also doing business loans.”

Things are changing

Over the past few years, Quinnell said a major focus at Prevail has been on the technology side.

“How do we continue to get ‘younger’ (as a bank)?” he said. “If you go back 15-20 years, the banking model was fairly consistent at every generation. If you wanted to make a deposit, you mostly wrote a check and came into a branch. If you had online banking at that time, it was convenient, but not required.”

Quinnell said he “can’t imagine” what things will look like in five or 10 years.

“It’s changing so quickly with technology,” he said. “We want to be here to support our community, so we’re going to continue to look and see what our customers want, need and expect from us and try to adapt. We’re going to look very different five years from now than we do today. You have to adapt if you want to survive.”

In today’s banking world, in terms of technology, Quinnell said there are three different customers.

“The older generation wants to come in and do their CD in person,” he said. “They want to do it all in person and talk to a teller. The next generation has a middle ground where they come into the bank maybe a few times per month, and then there’s the generation who never come into the bank and do everything on their cell phone and never carry cash.”

As an example, Quinnell said parents can ask a simple question: “Do you think your child, either now or as they get older, will ever come into a bank to do business?”

“You can open an account online, they’ll have debit cards, use their cell phone, etc.,” he said. “With Venmo, Apple Pay and other means of paying electronically, that’s very convenient. Brick and mortar means a lot to some generations, but technology means a lot more to others. Trying to balance that is interesting.”

To help support those different types of usage, Quinnell said Prevail also utilizes interactive teller machines (ITM).

“It’s like an ATM on steroids,” he laughed. “You can still do all your transactions – deposit cash and deposit checks at our ITM. During hours when people want to talk to a teller, it’s an online chat with a teller. They can control the machine, dispense cash, ask for a signature and scan a driver’s license.”

Quinnell said a lot of customers really like the ITMs.

“When I think back to when I was in school, in the summers, I worked for my dad,” he said. “I started work at 7:15 (a.m.) and got done at 5 (p.m.). When was I supposed to stop at the bank? We have a lot of after-hours traffic because it’s convenient for them to do their deposits, and they’re not trying to rush right at closing time to get here. They know they can go to the ITM any time – it’s 24/7 on-site banking. Having that resource for our customers to be able to stop at many of our branches now is a very good option.”

Despite the different options, Quinnell said some customers “get a little concerned that we are only focusing on one generation.”

“Absolutely not,” he said. “To those people (who are concerned), I say, ‘We are trying to offer services that a certain segment of our customers want. We are not removing anything.’ I’ve seen some financial institutions say the only way to use the ITM and make a transaction is through the machine in the lobby. There is a certain population that does not want to use that machine. At Prevail, if you want to come in and talk to a person, we are here for you. We have not removed any services or functionality, we’re just adding other channels.”

It’s for the community

As Quinnell stated previously, Prevail “is all about the community” – with the bank participating in several high-level events yearly.

“One of the most popular events is our community shredding event,” he said. “We’ll pick a nonprofit we’re supporting – whether it’s United Way or the (Wisconsin Rapids) Family Center – and team up with them. We have a shredder guy who comes on-site every two weeks to shred our stuff anyway, so we’ll bring him out to the parking lot.”

Quinnel said it doesn’t matter if you’re a Prevail customer or not to participate in the shredding event.

“It’s open to everyone,” he said. “You can bring at least one box of stuff to shred for free. We ask if you have more than one box, it’s like $5 a box. That’s a donation to whichever nonprofit we’re supporting.”

Quinnell said at a recent event in Wisconsin Rapids, more than 3,000 pounds of paper was shredded.

“It’s definitely well attended,” he said. “Cars were lined up down the road. We do it yearly, and that’s gaining traction in a lot of our markets.”

The bank’s community involvement doesn’t stop with its shredding events, Quinnell said.

“On our website, there is a charitable contribution form,” he said. “Any charity or nonprofit in our markets that would like to apply for funds can go on the website. Maybe it’s the food pantry looking for $10,000 to upgrade its freezer, or something like that. We review those requests twice a year.”

Quinnell said Prevail receives up to $400,000 in requests twice a year.

“We have a committee that looks through the applications,” he said. “We review things and then decide. We usually give between $60,000 and $90,000 twice a year.”

Quinnell said Prevail also donates about $100,000 yearly through sponsorships.

“That money goes to support community events and things like that,” he said. “My goal would be to continue to have Prevail keep performing well so we can increase that amount into the future.”

Quinnell said other events have included sorting diapers as a community service project in Stevens Point and preparing and serving food for The Community Table in Eau Claire.

For more information, visit prevail.bank.