By: Newsworthy.ai
November 4, 2026
Fredericksburg Banker: Big-Bank Deposits Fund New York, Not the Hill Country
The latest episode of The Building Texas Show, titled Why Your Money Might Be Leaving Texas (And Where It Goes), hosted by Justin McKenzie, lands October 21, 2026 with a pointed look at where Hill Country deposits actually end up. McKenzie sits down in Fredericksburg with John Wells, Market President for Texas Regional Bank, to unpack a timely question for Texas savers and small-business owners: when community money flows into national banks, does any of it come back home? The conversation also tracks Fredericksburg's rapid evolution into a national destination without losing its Texas identity.
Listeners get a wide-angle view of the forces reshaping Fredericksburg and the surrounding Hill Country. Topic threads include:
- The arrival of the Waldorf Astoria and what it says about tourism-led growth beyond peaches, antiques, and German heritage.
- Relationship banking versus rate shopping, and why the best operators keep an attorney, a CPA, and a banker on speed dial.
- Fredericksburg ISD's incubator and CTE programs, the Chamber's role under Jim McCulla, and the fight against Hill Country brain drain.
Wells, who started on the frontline at Chase before stops at the former Compass Bank and a five-year run building Texas Regional Bank's Fredericksburg market, draws a hard line between national and community institutions.
Nothing against the big banks, the big national banks, but all that money, all the deposits that are going into those banks are going straight to New York. They are going to these giant loans in Chicago and New York and L.A., and they're not being reinvested here in the community.He contrasts that with community lenders like Texas Regional Bank and Security State Bank, which, he says, put earnings back to work locally.
The episode digs into how that reinvestment shows up on the ground. Wells credits Dan Kemp and David Pedragon of Security State Bank as servant leaders who helped fund the Fredericksburg High School incubator, and he points to Little League jerseys stamped with hometown bank logos as a visible test of who actually backs the community. He and McKenzie also discuss his wife's work as sales director at Insight Gallery, the influx of remote executives from Austin and San Francisco, and the housing-affordability gap that still constrains young families. Wells, incoming chair of the Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce, previews student pitches heading to the Texas Venture Fest in Mason.
About The Building Texas ShowThe Building Texas Show, hosted by Justin McKenzie, spotlights the founders, operators, bankers, educators, and civic leaders shaping the Texas economy from the Hill Country to the coast. Each weekly episode blends on-the-ground reporting with candid conversation about entrepreneurship, community building, and the people putting capital and ideas to work across the state. The new episode is available now on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and all major podcast platforms.
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