Finward Bancorp is the holding company for Peoples Bank, an Indiana-chartered community bank operating 26 branches primarily in Lake and Porter Counties in northwest Indiana and Cook County in northeast Illinois. Peoples Bank takes deposits from consumers, businesses, and municipalities in its local market and lends that money out, primarily against real estate. The loan book is dominated by commercial real estate (~38% of total loans), residential real estate (~31%), and multifamily (~13%). Peoples Bank makes money primarily on net interest income — the spread between what it earns on loans and investments and what it pays on deposits. The bank is primarily a portfolio lender, holding most loans on its balance sheet, though it sells long-term fixed-rate residential mortgages into the secondary market to manage interest rate risk. Peoples Bank also runs a Wealth Management Group offering trust services, estate planning, and investment management, with roughly $417M in assets under management, generating modest fee income. Peoples Bank is currently operating under a memorandum of understanding with the FDIC and the Indiana Department of Financial Institutions, which restricts the bank from paying cash dividends to Finward without prior regulatory approval, limiting Finward's ability to pay dividends to common shareholders.