The Illinois Service Federal Savings and Loan (ISF Bank), located at 4619 South Martin Luther King Drive in Bronzeville, was established in 1934. This was during the Great Migration when African Americans moved to Chicago and further North areas to escape the Southern segregation.

At first many black folks found themselves denied loans from established banks so they decided to establish their own.

The historic ISF Bank has a great past serving it’s community but lately a weak loan portfolion was threatening the institution with closure.

Luckily some outside help has stepped up and after a 2-year process the bank has been taken over by Groupe Nduom, a business conglomerate based in Ghana, West Africa. This is their first business outside West Africa, adding to the 41 they already own.

With banking experience under their belt they seem keen to get involved in the community converting underbanked and unbanked customers in the local area. They want to restructure loans to strengthen the bank’s portfolio and even improve the local area by flipping some real estate on their own.

Pushing people to save also seems to be a prominent mission, one that I think we can all agree is good news!

Hopefully they will push the bank in the direction they say and make the ISF great again!

More can be read about their plans and the take-over here: http://chicagocrusader.com/historic-black-owned-bank-saved-closure/