In the holiday movie classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the building and loan of Bedford Falls is on the brink of going under due to a run on the bank. Angry and scared, customers show up demanding their funds.
George Bailey, played by James Stewart, pleads with the crowd to only take what they truly need to get by. He uses the honeymoon money from his recent marriage to keep the building and loan afloat, sacrificing his and his bride’s celebration for the sake of the community’s well-being.
While Bryant Bank isn’t the fictitious bank of Bedford Falls, it has a similar focus — ensuring the well-being of the community it serves.
The bank’s founding in 2005 was the vision of Paul Bryant Jr., a prominent businessman, says Bank President Claude Edwards. “His goal had always been to open a community bank that would be just like the old traditional community banks that supported him when he was starting out as a businessman in the community,” Edwards explains.
He envisioned a bank that would take care of families and also support businesses as they grew. Bryant also saw the bank’s role as more than just providing banking services, Edwards notes. “Volunteering in the community and providing resources for the important things that made the communities better [was also part of Bryant’s vision],” he adds.
Bryant Bank’s assets currently total just under $3 billion, and it has grown to nearly 300 employees across 18 branches statewide, according to Edwards.
He credits the bank’s employees — all referred to as “Bryant Bankers” — for the institution’s growth and success. “They have worked together so well to make a difference to their communities and to their customers. It’s our culture,” Edwards says.
Several years after the bank was started, management called on all Bryant Bankers to help revamp the bank’s core values, along with its mission and vision statements. “Our bankers decided to come up with who we think we are. Not who we want to be, but what have we made here? What kind of bank are we? What kind of group are we?” Edwards explains.
The effort was not based on a set of culture documents already defined by the executive management, he notes. “It was such a refreshing approach to how you do that, to be able to really define Bryant Bank. And it’s such buy-in when you let them help you,” Edwards says.
From that effort, Bryant Bankers developed the core values it uses today. Some of those include:
“We rise by lifting others,” a nod to how the bank takes care of its communities.
“We put our family first.”
“We empower potential.”
“Lifting others” is not simply a concept appearing in Bryant Bank’s core values. Matt Fetner, recently promoted to city president of the Bryant Bank in Foley, notes that helping communities is regularly discussed and encouraged in bank meetings. That then translates into taking action.
“It’s not that we’re pigeonholed into, ‘This is a group that you have to go serve.’ It’s more where you’re able to till your own field, right?” Fetner explains.
He and other bank colleagues are preparing for an employee appreciation event on May 5 for teachers in the Foley school system. The team plans to cook lunch for 175 teachers via a large tailgate trailer.
“[The teachers] are always really appreciative of us cooking, and it’s always good for us to get out and see people,” Fetner says. “What other two people are more connected to the community than a banker and a teacher, right? We serve the same purpose as making our area better.”
Community involvement by bank employees isn’t a practice only reserved for any one group. “I just want to be there to help,” one banker told Fetner after volunteering on a recent Tuesday evening in Orange Beach, where a handful of Bryant Bankers gave their personal time to serve food to a police canine organization.
“That was a neat thing to see. We talk about community involvement and the community impact, but all of our bankers feel that and want to be a part of it,” Fetner says.
Community impact also shows up in the bank’s day-to-day operations, as Max Karrh noted. Karrh, recently promoted to Tuscaloosa County president, leads the Tuscaloosa bankers. He has been with Bryant Bank since its inception.
He recently shared a story with college students participating in Anchor Tuscaloosa. Years ago, a potential customer met with Karrh to request a loan for a new stand-alone vending business in Tuscaloosa. The man had first gone to another bank that offered a “pretty difficult” loan, Karrh recalls.
“I came in with a simple solution that protected the bank. We started off with that loan, and it performed well,” Karrh explains. The fledgling business took off and grew throughout Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, providing generational income for the man’s family, all of whom work in the business today.
The customer recently visited Karrh to thank him for his help years ago. “I want you to know how meaningful it was that you took a chance on us, and now we’re a thriving business, and I’ll be able to leave this to my kids,” the man told Karrh.
Building relationships is central to how Bryant Bank operates, Karrh explains, especially when fighting fraud. A current customer recently called Karrh to ask if the bank had an employee with a certain name, and Karrh said “no.” This person had called the customer, posing as a banker.
Karrh called the poser and asked him what con he was running. The scammer hung up. “So, it just eliminated any doubt. I told [the customer] that if you’re ever feeling uncomfortable, hang up and call me. We want you to feel safe,” Karrh says.
This Bryant Bank principle of “caring” extends to the citizens of the community, the consumers and the businesses, says David Long, executive vice president, correspondent banking/capital markets. “[These] can’t exist without the others.”
Supporting the growth of local businesses and municipalities is inherent in Bryant Bank’s correspondent banking services. About 70% of Alabama’s community banks do business with Bryant via correspondent banking, Long says.
A community bank may work with Bryant when its customer needs a larger business loan than it can provide. “So, they can partner with us as long as we all feel like that’s a good loan for all parties,” Long explains. The community bank might also need Bryant’s expertise if it is unfamiliar with the type of business for which the loan is needed, he says.
Looking Back, Looking Ahead
When the bank started in 2005, it grew rapidly over the next five years, Edwards says. It worked through “growth pains” typical of most any new successful business, he notes, followed by a “strong, steady pace of growth.”
Along the way, it weathered the challenges of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in 2025, Bryant Bank celebrated a milestone — its 20th anniversary.
“It’s a challenging time for many banks, not knowing whether they’re going to be sold or whether their owners are going to buy a lot more banks and change the whole model,” Edwards says. “We are who we are, and that’s who we’re going to be. We want to continue to grow to help serve our communities in the state of Alabama better and better.”
Bryant Bank is “open to opportunities” should they appear, he notes. But there is a caveat.
“The bank was created with the intent that it’s not for sale. It’s going to be around for generations to come,” Edwards says. “We feel so honored to be a part of that in Mr. Bryant’s vision.”
Nancy Randall is a Tuscaloosa-based freelance contributor to Business Alabama.
This article appears in the May 2026 issue of Business Alabama.
