MidSouth Bank might return TARP money

Officials with MidSouth Bank say they might give back the $20 million they received from the U.S. Treasury because of conditions they see coming from the federal government. “They’re talking about attaching all sorts of strings to the money, so banks have been sending it back,” says Rusty Cloutier, president and CEO of the Lafayette-based bank. “The Treasury needs to stop listening to the special interests of the ‘too big to fail’ banks that got us into this trouble and break them up. And at the same time it should back away from community banks and let us do what we’re supposed to do with the TARP funds—lend the money.” Cloutier says MidSouth took the federal money so it would have more cash to loan to customers and businesses. “It’s looking more and more like the federal government wants to treat this like it was a needs-based issue, and we didn’t need the money,” he says. MidSouth hasn’t set a date for deciding what it will do with the $20 million; Cloutier says the bank is waiting for the final form of the Treasury’s plans to take shape.