Despite the bleak outlook on the national economy reflected in the national media, the Teche Area remains largely unaffected by the current economic crisis, local industry experts say.

State Rep. Taylor Barras, D-New Iberia, president of IberiaBank, said he wears two hats regarding this current situation and can speak about it from both perspectives.

“What we are hearing about on Wall Street is not the way community banks do business,” Barras said. “We have been historically, consistently, conservative about extensions of credit and will probably not feel the exposure in this that the larger national banks are feeling.”

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Barras said he believes Acadiana- and Louisiana-based banks still are interested in entertaining opportunities to extend credit or provide financing that local entities have. He also said while credit opportunities are still available in the area, we will likely feel some exposure from changes in the rate environment and credit likely will cost borrowers more in the future depending on the outcome of the current market situation.

Lonnie Bewley, bonding counsel for area governments and municipalities, said Louisiana is in pretty good shape.

“I don’t know how the current economic situation will affect longer term projects or large volume programs, but I don’t think it will be anything too drastic at this point in time,” he said. “We could see interest rates go up, but that’s been expected for a while now. We will really just have to wait and see.”

Many areas of the country are experiencing a “credit squeeze” with less credit extended to people and businesses.

Barras said people and local businesses that deal with community banks will not experience this because the portfolio of credit for these banks looks totally different and reflects historically, more responsible lending.

“We will continue to have an appetite for credit,” Barras said. “We are still in business and still want to be there and do business with our clients.”

Barras said public entities like parish and city governments in the Acadiana area will not have difficulty securing funding for improvement projects like roads.

“We at IberiaBank have historically done a lot of public financing,” he said. “We will continue to take into consideration any public projects that come to us.”

Barras said as a member of the Acadiana legislative delegation and as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, he is optimistically preparing for the next State Bond Commission meeting scheduled later this month.

“A lot of our local entities and Iberia Parish municipalities will make the October agenda, and I know our local delegation is working very hard to get those items approved,” he said. “There will be a question of the state’s ability to place those bonds amidst the market we are dealing with today.”

Barras said the state currently has a good bond rating, so he does not anticipate much difficulty placing future bonds though, again, they may also be affected by a future interest rate environment.

Barras said although it’s hard to say the area is totally different than Wall Street, in many ways it is and is often times protected from the markets volatility.