On January 31, 1920, the Citizens National Bank opened its doors for the first time in Bluffton, Ohio, and offered all new customers an apple in appreciation for stopping by. A review of the books from 1920 indicates that the bank began with $50,000 in capital and approximately four employees.
We have expanded our offices to Celina, Defiance, Elida, Findlay, Lima, Springfield, Toledo, and Van Wert. We currently employ about 160 people and serve customers in eleven primary counties: Allen, Hancock, Putnam, Hardin, Auglaize, Mercer, Van Wert, Paulding, Clark, Defiance and Lucas.
Despite the uncertainties of the pandemic, Citizens National Bank produced another record year in 2020, highlighted by strong loan growth and increases in core deposit funding.
We were proud to participate in the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided needed loans to businesses as they tried to maintain employment and operations this year. In fact, we aided more than 950 businesses through this program.
We developed new ways of doing business wtih our customers to be sure they felt fomfortable and safe. We completed loan closings remotely using Docu-Sign and expanded our mobile banking capabilities to offer improved account alerts and also Zelle for person to person payments.
As a community bank, we are focused on supporting local businesses and non-profits. Our employees volunteer their time throughout the year to many organizations, including the United Way and the Salvation Army, as well as many boards.
The size of our bank continues to grow, and we look forward to welcoming more staff into our organiztion to grow with us!
Citizens National Bank is consistently rated high for performance and stability. We currently have an A+ rating by DepositAccounts.com and a 5 Star Rating from Bauer Financial.