Development banks are intended by design to address large scale problems and are not concerned with the banking needs of everyday citizens. Nonetheless, to have a complete financial ecosystem that addresses all the needs of a state, there is a need for some form of retail banking to complement the development bank and the complementary currency bank (described here). Those retail banking needs are addressable by either non-profit owned retail banks or credit unions. A credit union (CU) by default is a non-profit cooperative, considered tax exempt by the IRS and state taxing entities. CUs do not have shareholders and are technically owned by their members on an equal, one member – one vote basis. A retail bank owned by a non-profit organization is an alternative to a credit union . Which best fits a particular state is determined by the SCF partnership in that state.

However, for a variety of reasons a non-profit owned bank would likely be preferable to a credit union. One of the key reasons is that gains (profit) by the bank can be used by the rest of the state SCF ecosystem whereas profits for a credit union have to remain inside that credit union.

So, assuming the choice is for a bank, the key question then is who owns it? The owner can either be SCC (in a fashion similar to it owning the development bank) or the State Holding Company via a bank holding company subsidiary. In either case, SCC will arrange to provide the State SCF Partner with a bank wherein all the profits of that bank will go to the State SCF ecosystem (none to SCC except for the split on the complementary currency sales) and the day to day management of the bank will be done by the State SCF Partner.