New Broward Bank of Commerce Is Too Small to Fail

Watch CBS Videos OnlineJust look at that! Indisputable video evidence of recent economic activity in your Broward County. Katie Couric's CBS News was so gobsmacked, she had to send a correspondent to see it in person.The Broward Bank of Commerce in downtown Fort Lauderdale has 99 shareholders and -- we...

By Thomas Francis

September 21, 2009

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Watch CBS Videos Online

Just look at that! Indisputable video evidence of recent economic activity in your Broward County. Katie Couric's CBS News was so gobsmacked, she had to send a correspondent to see it in person.

The Broward Bank of Commerce in downtown Fort Lauderdale has 99 shareholders and -- we trust -- none of the toxic assets that needed bailing out among the nation's biggest banks.

It may be a new bank, but it's got some familiar names on its board of directors, like Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler and E. Clay Shaw III. You can see Seiler in the first few seconds of the video.

No ATMs. No tellers. Not even a picture on the wall, so far as I can tell. And there's only the single branch, on the 21st floor of some skyscraper. "It looks like a lawyer's office," says the reporter. Or like a boiler room. Sorry, Broward Bank, but we depositors have been burned too much by old banks to give new ones the benefit of the doubt.

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