Arkansas
State Bank Department

New State Bank Commissioner

(updated June 20, 2007)

 

                                     

 

 

Longtime employee Candace A. Franks has been appointed the first female bank commissioner in the 94-year history of the Arkansas State Bank Department.

 

Governor Mike Beebe announced the appointment of Ms. Franks Wednesday morning.  Her appointment is effective immediately.

 

“I’m very excited to be the first woman bank commissioner of Arkansas,” said Ms. Franks, who has served the Bank Department for 27 years.  “This agency has been my life.  I look forward to a great next four years.”

 

Ms. Franks also noted that her appointment represents the first time a career regulator has been appointed to serve a full four-year term as the state’s bank commissioner.

 

“Candace has a wealth of institutional knowledge and the respect of bankers throughout our state,” Beebe said in a news release issued by his office on Wednesday. “She is an even-handed regulator who will continue to advance the Department’s mission of providing convenient, safe and competitive banking for Arkansans.”

 

The Bank Department is the chartering and regulatory authority for state banks that have a main office in Arkansas.  As of March 31, 2007, the agency supervised 115 state-chartered banks with total assets of $35.7 billion.

 

Ms. Franks has served as deputy bank commissioner and general counsel for the Bank Department since 1995.  Prior to that, since 1980, Ms. Franks served as general counsel to the Bank Department and represented the State Banking Board.

 

Ms. Franks served from 1994 to 1997 on the Governor’s Task Force to revise the Arkansas Banking Code.  In 1996 and 1997, she was a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Interstate Banking and Branching.

 

Ms. Franks was selected by Arkansas Business in 1996, 1997 and 1998 as one of the “Top 100 Women in Arkansas.”

 

Ms. Franks received a Juris Doctor from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law in 1979.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and a Master of Arts degree in American history at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

 

Ms. Franks and her husband, Roger, live in Little Rock.  They have one daughter, Ava.

 

Ms. Franks was raised in Jonesboro.  She is the daughter of Barbara Webb and the late Dr. James W. Webb.  Her brother, Dr. James P. (Jim) Webb, and his wife, Debbie, live in Springfield, Missouri.

 

Ms. Franks succeeds Robert H. “Bunny” Adcock Jr., who served as bank commissioner for one term, beginning in 2003.

 

 

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