Contact: Allison Matthews

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State business students who placed first in the national Conference of State Bank Supervisors 2020 Community Bank Case Study Competition this summer are presenting their successful project virtually this week as part of their honors.

The winning team members will speak at 2:30 p.m. Central Standard Time, Thursday [Oct. 1], during the Community Banking Conference. A complete agenda for the WebEx conference is available at https://www.communitybanking.org/conferences/2020/agenda.

The MSU team includes spring finance graduates Juan Benavides of Greenville; Liam Benson of Auburn, Maine; Byron McClendon of Brandon; Jake Mlsna of Starkville; and senior finance major Kirk Wright of Crystal Springs. Their faculty advisor is MSU Assistant Clinical Professor of Finance Matthew Whitledge.

For the case study competition, Mississippi State, along with 37 teams from 33 colleges and universities in 18 states, studied the impact of the Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering (BSA-AML) requirements of community banks. Student teams partnered with a local community bank to examine challenges, associated time and costs and identify potential regulatory reforms. Citizens National Bank, based in Meridian, was the MSU team’s community bank partner. 

Each student member and faculty advisor of the MSU Team is receiving a $1,000 scholarship. Their work also will be published in the annual CSBS Journal of Community Bank Case Studies. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) is the nationwide organization of banking regulators from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For more information, visit www.csbs.org.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.