Guaranty Bank Oxford Branch Celebrates Grand Opening With Chamber Ribbon Cutting

The branch at 1500 University Avenue that Oxford customers knew for more than a decade as Oxford University Bank formally introduced itself as Guaranty Bank on Wednesday, when the Oxford-Lafayette Chamber of Commerce hosted a midday ribbon cutting at the site roughly 18 months after the two institutions merged.

The ceremony drew chamber executives, local business owners, and community stakeholders to the University Avenue corridor, with a second event, Chamber After Hours, held at the same location that evening. The dual-event format gave Guaranty Bank a full-day opportunity to meet customers and entrepreneurs who may still associate the address with its predecessor.

The transition began September 20, 2024, when Guaranty Bank & Trust Company finalized its acquisition of Lafayette Bancorp, the Oxford-based parent of Oxford University Bank. The deal created a combined institution with roughly $2.6 billion in assets and 39 branches across Mississippi and Tennessee. OUB's University Avenue flagship, which had operated from that address since 2014, became part of Guaranty Bank's network alongside a second Oxford branch at 404 Enterprise Drive and the former OUB location in Pontotoc.

What the Belzoni-based institution carries into the Oxford market goes beyond a rebranding. Guaranty Bank holds a federal Certified Development Financial Institution designation, a credential its predecessor also held, requiring both banks to direct credit toward underserved borrowers. In Oxford, where rental demand near Ole Miss has tightened supply and kept housing costs climbing, that obligation makes the bank's actual lending priorities on University Avenue a question of practical consequence for small-business owners and homebuyers who fall outside the underwriting criteria of larger regional lenders.

The University Avenue branch held approximately $148 million in deposits as of the most recent public reporting, one of the heavier deposit concentrations among Oxford's community banks. Guaranty Bank, founded in 1943 and independently owned, now operates two Oxford branches, with the Enterprise Drive location providing commercial district reach while University Avenue anchors the corridor running from the Ole Miss campus into the city's retail core.

Wednesday's ribbon cutting fell during a stretch of active Chamber programming in Lafayette County. The April calendar showed multiple small-business events, a sign that Oxford's commercial pipeline remains open even as borrowing costs and affordability pressures test newer and growing businesses in the county. For Guaranty Bank, the formal chamber welcome marked the start of building a local identity from scratch on a block where it already holds the deposit base of a bank customers chose for 24 years.