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First Bancorp
First Bancorp is a bank holding company that runs First Bank, taking deposits and making loans to people and small businesses, mostly in North Carolina.
First Bancorp is the parent company of First Bank, a community-style bank that takes in deposits from people and businesses and lends that money back out as loans. Most of its customers are ordinary folks and small businesses in North Carolina and a few nearby states, and they use the bank for checking accounts, savings, mortgages, and small business loans.
The basic business works like a seesaw. The bank pays customers a little interest on their deposits, then lends that money out at a higher rate through mortgages, business loans, and consumer loans. The gap between what it pays savers and what it earns from borrowers is the core of the profit, and the bank also collects fees on things like account services and mortgage lending. Banks like this live or die on two things: the quality of the loans they make and the cost of the money they borrow. If borrowers stop paying, the loans turn bad and eat into profit. If deposit costs rise faster than loan income, the gap shrinks. First Bancorp has grown partly by buying other banks and expanding its branch footprint, which adds customers and deposits but also brings integration risk.
It is a small player next to giants like Bank of America and Wells Fargo, so it competes on relationships and local knowledge rather than scale. That means its fortunes are tied closely to the local economies it serves, especially in the Carolinas, and to interest rates, which shape both its lending income and what it must pay depositors.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026