Premium Is a Blast at North Country

Bloomberg News

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Open a bank account, get a gun.

North Country Financial Corp. is exchanging firearms for deposits. The company is giving away rifles and shotguns in lieu of the interest that normally accompanies the products.

Put as little as $869 in a 20-year certificate of deposit, and the bank will hand over a Weatherby Inc. Mark V Synthetic rifle that normally sells for $779. Deposit more, and you can choose from six Weatherby shotguns or a limited-edition rifle with walnut stock and oak-leaf engravings.

The bank has 28 branches, mostly in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and it says the guns-for-CDs program is going over well during a period of shrinking bank deposits nationally.

U.S. time deposits, including CDs, at yearend fell 10.2% from 10 years earlier, to about $1.05 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. Assets in mutual funds surged 537%, to $6.82 trillion at the end of November, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Banks across the country are offering everything from $50 gift certificates to books to casserole dishes and clocks in attempts to draw customers and stem a seven-year decline in deposits that reflects people’s shift to stocks and mutual funds.

North Country’s arrangement with Weatherby, of Atascadero, Calif., which began more than 10 years ago, is the brainchild of Ronald G. Ford, the banking company’s chairman and chief executive. “It’s a high-end product that fits the lifestyle here,” he said.

The guns, which are displayed on the bank branches’ walls, don’t raise many eyebrows in the Upper Peninsula, where some schools close for the start of hunting season in November.

Rose Garvin, a North Country Bank and Trust manager who has a federal firearms license, said the program has brought in millions of dollars of deposits from customers in every state, since the bank advertises its CDs in magazines for hunting and gun buffs.

This novel premium has angered some, though not enough to put a stop to the program.

“I’m not thrilled that they’re giving out rifles, but I wouldn’t join picket lines against it,” said Marj Jackson Levin, president of Michigan Citizens for Handgun Control in Birmingham, a Detroit suburb. “I can’t say that they shouldn’t be giving guns away.”

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER