Shell Oil Co. is making $7.5 million of community development and small-business loans available over the next three years through Dryades Savings Bank of New Orleans.
Shell has also put $1 million of deposits into Dryades and purchased $250,000 of the $109 million-asset bank's noncontrolling equity interest.
Dryades chairman Charles C. Teamer said the bank plans to use the money to expand its retail and service businesses in inner-city New Orleans through loans to minorities and women.
New Orleans is the fourth city in which Shell has invested through its two-year-old Community Banking Initiative.
