Full interview with Bank of North Dakota President and CEO Don Morgan
(BISMARCK, ND) – The leader of the lone state-owned bank in the United States — the Bank of North Dakota — is pushing back from a story in which he says inaccurate reporting took place.
“We are overseen heavily, much like the banking industry, by state government, and also by the Department of Financial Institutions by outside auditors,” Bank of North Dakota President and CEO Don Morgan told WDAY Radio in an interview Thursday morning. “And we have a lot of transparent reporting out there via our website and via other mechanisms.”
“Not only is that patently false, we’re actually highly overseen. So the Industrial Commission, which is made up of the Governor, the Attorney General, and the ag Commissioner is our overseeing board. We report to them monthly. All those meetings are subject to the open records laws, the open parts of the session. Anybody can go out and view the videos that are posted out there on those you know, on those meetings. That’s our first layer of oversight,” he said. “Our second layer is we have an independent advisory board that’s made up of business professionals bankers from across the state of North Dakota who also we meet with monthly and quarterly for oversight of the bank. We are subject to annual financial statement audits.”
The report also said the bank writes more than $400 million in bad loans, along with providing ‘sweetheart loans’ to others, something Morgan said isn’t true. The average loan chargeoff rate is less than a half of a percent, he said. He also said the bank does not buy ‘bad loans’ from private financial institutions.
An anonymous source says other banks in the state ‘are highly pressured to align with the state’s financial instutition,’ in which Morgan denies.
“It’s a true partnership,” he said. “Our mission is to be there for the state when needed. Our mission is to put money back into the state on a recurring basis via all the community banks and credit unions out there. And we do that in a partnering way, in a very transparent way.”
For the full response from the Bank of North Dakota, click here.
