Oregon Public Broadcasting

A new bank opened in downtown Prineville Monday.

Sort of.

Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

The Home Federal Bank on Prineville’s Third Street still displays a lot of signs with the name Community First Bank.

But, as of Friday afternoon, the eight central Oregon branches of Community First Bank were no longer in business.

The bank was insolvent, taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Then acquired by Boise-based Home Federal.

CEO Len Williams was in Prineville for the reopening. He says all the bank employees, except for the top managers, will be retained.  And customers should not see much change.

Len Williams: “Their ATM cards will still work, debit cards still work, checks they’ve got, even if they just ordered them, they can work through them. Business as usual.”

Because of the FDIC process, depositors won’t face any losses. Regulators say the bank failed because of critically low levels of capital -- bad commercial and real estate loans.

Community First is the fourth bank in Oregon and southwest Washington to fail in the last two years – and the 99th in the country.