Bank of Georgia has received a Cease and Desist order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) concerning a number of banking practices that FDIC said could constitute unsafe or unsound practices and regulation violations. But Bank of Georgia said those concerns, based on a report from September 2008, have been largely resolved.

Bank of Georgia executives see the Order from a different point of view. President Pat Shepherd and CFO Lynn Gable contend that nearly all of the one-dozen concerns listed were addressed subsequent to the September 2008 bank examination.

Those compliance areas were not noted in the June 2009 order. Of the few concerns that remain, they are largely tied to the Fayette/Coweta economies and to that of metro Atlanta.

Gable and Shepherd maintained that BOG’s loan business is geared primarily to the building and construction industry, adding that the bank has made no sub-prime residential loans.

“We made too many construction loans but nobody, including in the banking system in metro Atlanta marketplace, predicted what was going to happen with the local economy. We can’t change the economy but we can change the way we do business,” said Shepherd. “We’re not going anywhere. We are not going to fail. There’s no way.”