From one quarter to the next, Iberiabank is typically right at the top of the list of the highest-volume mortgage producers in Shelby County. The Louisiana-based bank has eight branches in the area and has cemented its ties to the city recently with an expansion into Binghampton and the Memphis Medical Center.

Iberiabank is performing “random acts of kindness” in the community to celebrate its 130th birthday, part of what Memphis market president Nathan Raines says is a longtime mission to engage with the community.

(Daily News/Andrew J. Breig)

And for its birthday, the bank is pursuing a continuation of tying itself deeper to the city. For its 130th anniversary – a major milestone it will hit on March 12 – Iberiabank has been performing “random acts of kindness” companywide, including by encouraging Memphis-area branches to give back to the community.

In the Memphis area, that’s included Iberiabank’s Wolf River branch surprising a client who’d just turned 100 years old with flowers. Staffers also brought homemade cookies to the staff and teachers at Dogwood Elementary School.

Among other local random acts, the bank’s Germantown branch surprised the teachers at Madonna Learning Center – a school for special needs children of all ages - with breakfast. The bank also took doughnuts to the Germantown Fire Department.

“We really see this as an extension of what we’ve always done in Memphis – supporting community groups and local charities,” said Iberiabank’s Memphis market president Nathan Raines. “We’ve encouraged each branch location to go out into the communities around their branch and give something back.”

Iberiabank has eight branches in the Memphis area and employs about 70 people here.

(Daily News File/Andrew J. Breig)

As part of its 130th birthday celebration, the bank has also been holding a “Golden Opportunity Giveaway” that ends March 8. Participants having been signing up to win cash prizes that will be announced by mail and posted on Iberiabank’s website March 13 – one winner getting $13,000 and 13 receiving $1,300 each.

The celebration also represents, in one sense, what banking has become in a digital-first, mobile-focused world. Banks from small community institutions to larger players like Iberiabank to even the biggest names like Bank of America talk about the scramble to achieve differentiation in service and people and ties to the community. And Iberiabank – which employs roughly 70 people in the Memphis area – is one example of what that looks like in practice.

While other banks have begun shying away from investing in bricks and mortar, Iberiabank has gone the other way — not only by adding new branches in Memphis, but branches in the core city. In 2015, Iberiabank added branches in Binghampton and in the city’s medical center.

Banking, said Iberiabank’s Tennessee regional president Greg Smithers at the time, “is still a relationship business.” That means, for starters, a presence in the community, and involvement in the community.

The bank is as busy as ever on the business side locally. Iberiabank was the second highest volume mortgage lender on a purchase mortgage basis locally in February, according to the latest figures from real estate information company Chandler Reports, www.chandlerreports.com.

For its birthday, though, the bank’s small charitable acts around the city underscore what Smithers said he believes banking to be – that people and relationships are what make the difference.