A mortgage bank with a long Cincinnati history
Union Savings Bank began in Cincinnati in 1904. More than a century later, its public identity still centers on helping people buy, refinance and build homes. Its own history describes expansion into Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania through branches and lending offices. Those offices extend the same business rather than create separate banks in every state. [3]
The current insured institution is Union Savings Bank, FDIC certificate 32296, headquartered on Governors Hill Drive in Cincinnati. The October 2, 2026 FDIC institution index identifies an active Ohio-chartered savings-and-loan institution, with the FDIC as primary federal regulator. The certificate distinguishes this bank from unrelated institutions using the same name. [1]
How the home-loan business works
The bank promotes low closing costs and personalized service, claims that describe its chosen market position rather than an independent ranking of price or service quality. The lending menu includes fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages, government-supported home loans, jumbo loans, construction financing and home-equity borrowing. It also covers investment properties, apartment buildings, commercial property and vacant lots. A construction loan finances a building before it becomes an ordinary finished home; a home-equity loan or line lends against value in a property already owned. These are related businesses, but they involve different collateral, repayment schedules and stages of a borrower’s finances. [4]
The bank pairs lending with checking, savings, certificates of deposit, retirement accounts and digital account access. Its product list also includes an account linked to a Union mortgage and automatic mortgage payments. That connects the borrowing relationship to the customer’s day-to-day money management. Deposits are a source of bank funding, while payment features give customers reasons to keep using an account beyond the rate it earns. [5]
Size and credit at June 2026
At June 30, 2026, the bank reported $4.020 billion in assets, $3.535 billion in deposits, $3.525 billion in net loans and leases, and $408.8 million in equity. A year earlier, assets were $4.026 billion, deposits $3.372 billion and net loans $3.555 billion. First-half bank net income rose to $40.5 million from $25.0 million. These FDIC figures are bank-only, with dollar fields converted from thousands. [2]
Nonaccrual loans, for which ordinary interest recognition has stopped, increased to $24.9 million from $12.3 million. Real-estate-secured loans were $3.524 billion, nearly all gross loans and leases. Deposits rose while assets were broadly flat, but the simultaneous rise in nonaccrual balances prevents a simple reading of stronger earnings as uniformly better credit. Nonaccrual status is a warning measure, not a forecast that every affected dollar will be lost. [2]
The redlining case
On December 28, 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a settlement with Union and the related Guardian Savings Bank. The government alleged that the banks had avoided predominantly Black neighborhoods in the Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton and Indianapolis areas. Its allegations concerned branch placement, marketing and loan-officer practices. The settlement required a combined $7 million loan-subsidy fund and $2 million for advertising, outreach and financial education. These were commitments by the two banks together, not $9 million attributed to Union alone. [6]
The court entered the on January 3, 2017, requiring two branches and a loan-production office in majority-Black census tracts. The cited record does not establish its present termination status. [7]
Later scrutiny was more mixed than one rating suggests
Union’s May 2025 public file describes it as a privately held stock institution. The same file includes the FDIC’s June 13, 2023 Community Reinvestment Act evaluation: Satisfactory overall, but Needs to Improve in Indiana. Examiners described poor geographic loan distribution overall and a low level of community-development lending. They also reported that their discrimination review identified no discriminatory or other illegal credit practices. These are findings of that dated examination, not a real-time assurance about every subsequent loan. [8]
A CRA review asks how a bank helps meet community credit needs. Its overall grade can coexist with weakness in a particular state, and it is not a bank-solvency rating. Keeping the later evaluation alongside the older settlement avoids two opposite errors: presenting past allegations as a new case or treating a satisfactory overall score as if it erased the historical record. [8]
The continuing mortgage trade-off
The bank now describes community work that includes financial education, affordable-housing efforts and partnerships with local organizations. Its published program emphasizes reaching borrowers and neighborhoods through those relationships. This is evidence of what the bank says it does and prioritizes; a program description alone cannot demonstrate that past access problems have been fully resolved. The distinction matters because outreach, loan applications, approvals and successful long-term borrowing are different outcomes. [9]
A mortgage-centered bank also has a recognizable economic tension. Home loans can remain outstanding for many years, while savers can move deposits or demand higher rates much sooner. Borrower job losses, property-value declines and weaker refinancing demand create different pressures. The public snapshots here do not reveal each loan’s reset date, each depositor’s likely behavior or the eventual losses on troubled credits. Those gaps limit how confidently any single quarter can be extrapolated.
Sources
- FDIC institution record; October 2, 2026 index, checked October 6Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- FDIC bank financials; June 30, 2026 and 2025, dollars in thousands; income year to dateOfficial sourceBack to text: ↑1↑2
- Union Savings Bank history and footprint; checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- Union Savings Bank mortgage products; checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- Union Savings Bank deposit services; checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑
- Justice Department redlining settlement announcement, December 28, 2016Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- Justice Department case record; consent order entered January 3, 2017Official sourceBack to text: ↑
- Union Savings Bank May 2025 CRA public file; includes FDIC June 13, 2023 evaluation, PDF pages 116–235Source · PDFBack to text: ↑1↑2
- Union Savings Bank community-development program; checked October 6, 2026SourceBack to text: ↑