Jan. 24, 2023

North Dakota-based First International Bank & Trust has moved into its new downtown office.

The family-owned bank acquired the former First Premier Bank headquarters on the southwest corner of 14th Street and Minnesota Avenue.

It has operated in the Sioux Falls market since late 2020, beginning with the acquisition of Sodak Home Loans near 57th Street and Western Avenue.

“We have a good mortgage presence because of that,” said president Peter Stenehjem, whose great-grandfather founded the bank in 1910.

The downtown office will be for the bank’s client-facing team, he said.

The 17,000-square-foot building has been renovated from top to bottom.

“We have some room to grow, but at the current pace, we will see how fast it takes us,” Stenehjem said. “We have a tendency to fill up faster than we anticipate, but that’s a good problem to have.”

Services include personal banking, business banking, mortgage loans, Visa credit cards, insurance products, financial planning and investments, mineral and land services, treasury management, home equity loans and lines of credit, and auto, recreation and personal loans.

The bank also owns land at 69th Street and Minnesota Avenue for future development but doesn’t have a timeline set for it.

Sioux Falls, led by community president Jason Appel, is an appealing market both because the bank’s existing clients do business here and for its financial services talent base, Stenehjem said.

FIBT acquired a Fargo-based electronic payments processor in 2018 now called Kotapay and employs a broad remote workforce offering ACH solutions, credit card processing and custom payment portals.