Beyond our business, we’re active members of our communities. We’re not just bankers—we’re fellow citizens of the Okefenokee area who contribute to making our area a great place to live.
It’s a part of who we are that we take an active role in making this an even better place to live. At work, we finance new businesses or new homes—but outside of work we like to contribute in a hundred other ways.
Our Junior Board program instills sound business values in the next generation. We ask rising seniors to meet regularly with us and help us help our community. They get a close-up look at how a bank runs and how its people spend their time helping others.
We are proud to be active in sponsoring events like Dancing with the Southern Stars, Waycross Area Fashion Show benefiting Mattie’s Mission and CASA, and a supporter of Campground Clothing, Ware County STEM program, and the Okefenokee Swamp Park Osprey Society. We hope you’ll agree that all these programs are worth our time (and maybe yours, too).
Our History
In 1988, many of the banks in Waycross were owned by big city banks. They’d all been bought up—and when a bank gets bought by a firm from somewhere else, the service changes. It’s no longer possible for management to make a big decision without getting approval from people that don’t live here.
A group of business leaders addressed the problem by founding a new bank. They applied for and received a charter from the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance. The doors of Waycross Bank & Trust opened in 1988.
We’re still locally-owned. We’ve found our customers appreciate doing business with a bank born and raised in their hometown.
Our founding principles have kept our bank and our customers secure for decades, and we are recognized as one of the safest banks in Georgia.
- Our first responsibility is to our depositors. We must operate a safe and sound bank where customers know their money is not at risk and available to them at all times.
- Our second responsibility is to our customers, who are entitled to the highest level of service—including access to all of the latest banking technology, programs and services.
- Our third responsibility is to our shareholders. They are entitled to a reasonable return on the value of their equity and the safety of their investment.
