Department of Not-Quite-Redundancy Department, Bank Acronym Edition

The Webster City Daily Freeman-Journal reported last week that a bank from there opened a branch in Tama.

The bank’s name in question is WCF Financial. The initials got me to pondering the name, after a brief moment of wondering why the DFJ would be writing about Tama (aside from the fact that both happen to be Ogden Newspapers towns).

Through a historic Google Street View photo and a website called Bank Branch Locator (sounds handy!), I found the history. The bank was Webster City Federal until 2014, when it bought a bank in Independence, and changed its name to WCF Financial Bank. A new building opened across the street from the Webster City McDonald’s* in 2015.

So that explains the double-F: If we ignore the “letters don’t stand for anything anymore but they obviously used to” thing that many organizations do nowadays, it would be Webster City Federal Financial Bank. It doesn’t change the oddity that this bank has three locations over a wide area, though.

*AKA, the only fast food immediately off US 20 on the entire stretch between US 63 and US 59 without stepping into a gas station, and the only anything between IA 14 and IA 4.
(Obviously, this was supposed to be Friday’s post. Surprise.)
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