Start-Up Banks Seek To Float With Customer Service

Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase may offer size and global reach, but just try getting someone helpful on the phone. That’s the view of small start-up banks, which are proliferating even in the shadow of financial giants.Ultimately, most banks – new or old – offer the same products.With so many companies chasing business customers, start-ups promote community ties and intense customer service.A key to success for small banks is that they “are better able to use soft information that they acquire by being close to the community,” a professor of finance and economics at Baruch College, Linda Allen, said.Knowledge of their customers enables these institutions to make faster lending decisions. Also, the new banks frequently are started by bankers who have decades of experience in the industry, often at banks that were once small and then merged with larger rivals.Due to industry consolidation, the number of banks in America has been consistently shrinking. Currently there are about 7,500, down from a high water mark of 14,496 banks at the end of 1984, according to the Federal DepositWith more banks growing into national and regional players, there is room for new institutions. Since the end of 2004, the FDIC has granted 258 new charters. While New York is hardly a hotbed of de novo banks (as they are called in the industry), 13 banks have formed in the state in the last 18 months, and there are several new niche players within the five boroughs.United International Bank, chartered in February, was founded to serve the Chinese business community in the Flushing section of Queens. Most of its senior staff comes from the Torrance, Calif.-based China Trust Bank, the bank’s general manager, Eric Shen, said.United International Bank claims no special niche besides superior service: It is open 365 days a year, and on weekdays its hours run from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. So far, it has made business and commercial real estate loans, and it plans to start offering residential mortgages within two years, Mr. Shen said.Perhaps more unusual is Liberty-Pointe Bank. It, too, aims to be a community bank, though its initial branch is in the landmark Equitable Building, a stone’s throw from Wall Street. Founded by childhood friends Shaya Boymelgreen, a real estate developer, and Meyer Eichler, a retailer who specializes in Judaica, its focus is on the Orthodox and chasidic Jewish community, as well as on the growing downtown residential community, Mr. Eichler said.“We felt that there was a need for a new bank to serve, among other segments of the population, the religious Jewish population, and we felt that we could serve that community a little better since we are of that community,” Mr. Eichler, the bank’s vice chairman, said. “A lot of these people feel comfortable” with bankers who can speak Yiddish, he said.The bank’s chairman, Mr. Boymelgreen is a major builder who has specialized in Lower Manhattan office-toresidential conversions, with projects at 15 Broad St., 20 Pine St., and 14 Wall St. The management at Liberty-Pointe’s figures it can offer banking to some of the same folks the developer has housed. Although people buying condos near the New York Stock Exchange are hardly underserved, “We have found that more than half the people are not really wedded to their banking relationship,” Mr. Eichler said, adding that he thinks even the more sophisticated customers can be wooed by more personal attention.If a bank that started with just $15 million in capital in October of last year seems like small potatoes for a man who is used to borrowing hundreds of millions – LibertyPointe currently makes loans of $2 million or less – Mr. Eichler doesn’t disagree. He said the bank may buy a larger institution in order to expand, though there are no current plans to do so.Even if the bank grows only internally, Mr. Eichler said it would soon add Brooklyn branches to its flagship at 120 Broadway. Although the partners may have gotten a running start by buying an existing bank, “We wanted a bank with our culture and our imprimatur,” Mr. Eichler said.

Start-Up Banks Seek To Float With Customer Service

Start-Up Banks Seek To Float With Customer Service

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