 KRISTINA GRAF
SENIOR RELATIONSHIP BANKER
Meet Kristi Graf, long-time community banker, treasury management professional, and perennial problem solver. Kristi brings the wealth of 20 years of industry experience to Village Bank customers.
When Kristi and her husband moved to Saint Francis after living in the Alexandria lakes region, she knew she’d have her choice of financial institution opportunities. “Having worked at big banks and family-owned banks, I definitely wanted to work at a local community bank,” Kristi said. That move, which was designed to put the Grafs closer to family, cemented her roots in community banking. “I would never go back to big banking.”
Each day at Village Bank , Kristi gets to live the community bank’s values: Put Relationships First and Own it. From her office in Blaine, Kristi is on call for all customer needs, from account opening to consumer loans to treasury management.
Each Village Bank branch has its own “feel,” Kristi said, and the Blaine branch has a distinct commercial focus. What she offers each client depends upon where they are in the onboarding process and what their needs are,” she explained. With treasury management, she helps customers set up remote deposit operations, helps them wire funds, sets their ACH set up on their mobile devices, and assists with whatever product or service is appropriate. “I talk to business professionals, get to know them and how they run their businesses … the inner workings … and go over the benefits of the various accounts.”
What makes her job interesting, Kristi says, is that each business is run differently. “Hopefully I can save them money and time,” she said. Her approach is hands on and she said she’s on many peoples’ speed-dial. “I know most of my customers by the sound of their voice.”
Remote deposit capture is especially popular for businesses that take a lot of check payments. “If a business is in the south metro, they no longer have to drive to our branch to deposit those checks,” Kristi said. Recently, she sent a remote deposit capture machine to a commercial client based in North Carolina.
With most if not all banking transactions able to be conducted digitally, customers who relocate to other states can keep banking at Village, where the personal touch matters, Kristi said. “In this day and age, you can bank anywhere. People choose us for the people, the customer service. When they call they can talk to somebody. It’s not automated. That’s how we keep our customers; they know they can call us and we know them.”
“Business customers have more options and controls when it comes to banking in today's market,” Kristi said. At Village Bank, Kristi jumps into each of her workdays striving to understand the challenges people face and figure out the options to move forward. “I love working with customers to find solutions to help them with their banking needs. It’s my favorite part of the job.”
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