336 | Business World Magazine |
April 2013
Community has to be the focus of a com-
munity bank, says Kramer. Unlike large in-
vestment firms and corporate banking insti-
tutions that Kramer describes as being “built
on fewer and larger transactions,” FSGthrives
on relationships. “As a community bank, we
live and die by how well we treat lots of small
clients. That’s a good thing, for one, because
we have smaller risk exposure. But this also
means better service for the customer. We
have to treat all of our clients great because
our business is about the value of long-term
relationships. At larger banks, the focus can
become all about the transaction as opposed
to the people behind it. We believe the rela-
tionship is more important than the transac-
tion.”
Yet, in many ways, FSG customers ben-
efit from having the best of two worlds; FSG
is the only publically-traded, billion dollar
banking institution headquartered in east
Tennessee. That size and scope offers a ca-
pacity comparable with that of other large
enterprises. Yet the focus on community and
