One of the most significant needs of local entrepreneurs is financing. The exciting business opportunities revealed in both the BALLE Overview Leakage Calculator and the BALLE Food Leakage Calculator can be capitalized by tapping local financial resources. The Finance Leakage Calculator offers a comprehensive look at the financial assets of your community.
The BALLE Finance Leakage Calculator displays the local banks and credit unions in your region, along with a snapshot of the financial assets of your community. You can find results either by state or county.
The first box displays “Residents’ Financial Resources.” Using national data on
Americans' investing and savings trends, the calculator utilizes population information from the
Census Bureau to approximate the value of residents' financial resources, including:
• Checking Accounts and Currency
• Savings Deposits
• Money Market Deposits
• Stocks
• Bonds
• Mutual Funds
• Pension Funds
• Insurance Funds
Because these estimates are based on national data, depending on the constituency of your region the financial resources of your county may be more limited or more vast than the results indicate.
The second box lists local banks in your region. The bank, its branches and locations, and its total deposits and assets, as recorded by the
FDIC, are displayed. The next box lists local credit unions. This contains data from the
National Credit Union Administration on credit unions in your region, including their branch locations, deposits in each branch and total assets. Banks and credit unions are considered local if they meet the following two criteria.
• They are not owned by a holding company.
• They have branches in only one state.
Beginning in version 1.1 of this calculator, which will be available in early 2011, we will undertake a more nuanced sorting of financial institutions. Until then, if the results desplayed omit a locally-owned bank or credit union in your area--please contact us at
leakagecalculators@livingeconomies.org.
You will NOT be able to load the calculator below unless you've already purchased access.
To load the BALLE Financial Leakage Calculator click the button below:
For more information about data sources and methodology behind the Financial Leakage Calculator, please click here.
Listings of local banks and credit unions can be helpful in creating directories or other tools for the constituents in your region to recognize local businesses. These banking institutions are also especially important because they represent an opportunity for individuals to make safer and more productive financial decisions for themselves and their communities. Recently, campaigns like MoveYourMoney.info have inspired citizens to reconsider where they bank their money, encouraging folks to move their money out of Wall Street and invest it instead with a local bank in their community. Furthermore, local banking institutions can be important allies when working on starting a metabusiness like a local currency or a debit card. They can lend credibility and technical and administrative skills to innovative programming, and in turn they can gain loyal customers, and the patronage of vibrant local enterprises and their owners.
The residents’ financial resources results also provide an exciting talking point when discussing the financial capital needed for local investing. Perhaps your county is interested in expanding its self-reliance in a given sector, but upon completing a feasibility study a local business estimates the initial investment required for expanding capacity to meet local demand is a million dollars. It’s helpful to reference the financial resources tabulated here by the leakage calculator: this county has approximately $7.2 Billion in pension funds, has invested over $700 Million dollars in Mutual Funds, and has savings deposits valued at over $2 Billion. This one million dollar investment in the self-reliance and vibrancy of this local economy represents less than .02% of what this community currently invests in Fortune 500 companies on Wall Street.
These numbers can be fuel for dreams. They allow us to imagine what might be possible if pension funds were invested in local businesses, or if there were local stock markets enabling investors to put their money into the future of their local economy.
Be sure to check out BALLE's other leakage calculators:
Learn more about data sources and methodology behind the Food Leakage Calculator.
Please let us know about your experiences and report any problems by contacting us directly.
