Financial institutions respond to stimulus check traffic

People across the nation are receiving the first round of stimulus checks and some financial institutions across the Stateline are feeling the effects.

"The sheer volume of everybody getting these checks in a small period of time is a tremendous amount of dollars per se," Senior Vice President of Consumer Banking at Illinois Bank and Trust Gina Caruana said.

The checks from the federal government will deposit in waves, offering financial relief to many Stateline residents, but some banks are finding it hard to keep up.

"The phone is ringing off the hook, we're answering the phones in the branch, trying to keep everyone in line so that they can look through their mobile app, online through their browser, or of course call your local branch," Assistant Vice President of Northwest Bank Joe Larkin said.

For some local banks mobile apps and online services are crashing due to increased traffic.

"It's been coming in and out but three days ago we were receiving approximately 1,000 logins on our mobile app and as of today it's over 4,000," Holcomb bank president Perry Byers said.

Banks say while the need for the extra cash flow is urgent to many Stateline families, they're doing the best they can to keep up with the demand.

"The wait time on the customer care lines are a little longer because there is an uptick in volume customers do want information and some customers do not have the ability to use online services," Caruana said.