Business Q&A: Don Abernathy

Q: We keep hearing that credit markets have dried up. What has been your company’s experience?

A: We have probably 200 banks on average that sell us funds that we in turn put into larger blocks and sell to other banks around the country, and we are seeing that there is a lot of liquidity in Oklahoma and there’s a lot of liquidity around the country. The reason we can tell that is normally the Fed funds rate is around 2 percent. We are getting lower rates than 2 percent. And generally that indicates that people have a lot of money and are not willing to pay the normal market rate for Fed funds. That’s been very surprising because I’ve been reading how everyone’s interbank lending is drying up. That is not the case we’re seeing.

Q: How much volume are we talking about?

A: In Oklahoma, we have on average between 180 and 200 banks a day that sell us some of their excess money. We’re seeing on average $600 million a day that banks are sending to us that is excess funding that they have. So there is a lot of money out there in the Oklahoma banks. In traveling around to the bankers, I’m also hearing a lot of the bankers out here are looking for loans for whatever reason. Oil and gas and agriculture are doing so well right now. The Oklahoma banks are very strong and very healthy and are looking for good loans out there.

Q: So if Oklahomans need money, they should just go to their local bank?

Absolutely. We have been very blessed obviously by having two of our normal industries being extremely strong right now — energy and agriculture.

BUSINESS WRITER DON MECOY