First Guaranty Bancshares Inc 's

We face intense competition both in making loans and attracting deposits. Our market areas in Louisiana have a high concentration of financial institutions, many of which are branches of large money center, super-regional and regional banks that have resulted from consolidation of the banking industry in Louisiana. Many of these competitors have greater resources than we do and may offer services that we do not provide, including more attractive pricing than we offer and more extensive branch networks for which they can offer their financial products.

Our larger competitors have a greater ability to finance wide-ranging advertising campaigns through their greater capital resources. Our marketing efforts depend heavily upon referrals from officers, directors and shareholders, selective advertising in local media and direct mail solicitations. We compete for business principally on the basis of personal service to customers, customer access to our officers and directors and competitive interest rates and fees. We also can offer new technologies such as our mobile app and mobile check deposit for consumers and remote deposit capture for commercial customers.

In the financial services industry in recent years, intense market demands, technological and regulatory changes and economic pressures have eroded industry classifications that were once clearly defined. Financial institutions have been forced to diversify their services, increase rates paid on deposits and become more cost effective as a result of competition with one another and with new types of financial services companies, including non-banking competitors. Some of the results of these market dynamics in the financial services industry have been a number of new bank and non-bank competitors, increased merger activity, and increased customer awareness of product and service differences among competitors. These factors could affect our business prospects.