Iowa State Bank expands into Ottumwa, Centerville

FAIRFIELD – Iowa State Bank in Fairfield has experienced tremendous growth in the last few years, opening branches in Ottumwa and most recently Centerville.

The Ottumwa branch was opened in 2022, and the branch in Centerville opened in April 2025. Alissa Ward, the bank’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Marketing, said the opening of both branches began by hiring excellent employees from those towns.

“Similar to the Ottumwa branch, the Centerville location came about as a result of hiring some outstanding team members that are from the Centerville area,” Ward said. “As those people came on board with us and started to build their customer bases, we quickly realized that we could serve that community even better with a physical location there.”

Iowa State Bank now has two service locations in Ottumwa. In addition to the main building at 625 E. Pennsylvania, in late 2024 the bank opened a drive-thru ATM at 1301 Albia Road.

“Our growth throughout southeast Iowa reflects not only our dedication to the communities we serve, but also the value we provide to our growing customer base,” Ward said. “At the heart of this success is our incredible team, who always put our customers first.”

The bank has added six employees in the past year to bring its total number of staffers to 34.

Iowa State Bank President Aaron Kness said managing interest rates has been a challenge in recent years, which included a long stretch of low-interest rates during the pandemic era, but since then the Federal Reserve reversed course and pushed rates much higher.

“We’ve experienced some stability over the past year now, and most economists now expect rates to begin falling gradually over time,” Kness said.

Kness said the bank serves a diverse customer base, and that’s why it’s important to offer a variety of loans, customizing them to meet the needs of farmers, commercial entities, and to accommodate all manner of personal loans.

“As you can imagine, our individual customers utilize the bank to finance the purchase of homes, vehicles, weddings … basically anything life may throw at you,” he said.