Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation

Meredith Village Savings Bank

September 22, 2004

FDIC
Division of Finance
550 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20429

Dear Sir or Madam:

This letter addresses your solicitation for comments regarding a `streamlined' CRA exam.

Ours is a $450 million dollar community bank which strongly believes in supporting its communities through fair lending, provision of excellent services, employee involvement, and constructive investment. Having recently experienced the `large' bank CRA exam, we are keenly aware that it doesn't fit a bank our size very well. We did well on the exam in the categories of lending and services but only moderately well in regard to investments. Investments, as the `large' bank CRA exam defines them, are hard to find in our service area. So hard in fact that we are now trying to create some that we can invest into.

We applaud your bold initiative to raise to $1 billion the asset size necessary to qualify for the `large' bank CRA exam. Your proposal makes a lot of sense.

Sincerely,
Bill Beyer
President and CEO