STAMFORD, Conn.- Fred DeCaro is declaring war on big banks.
"I want to clean your clock because you don't do banking the right way," he said with intense determination to an imaginary CEO as he drove his Ford Taurus from his Stamford office to nearby Manhattan.
On the drive, Mr. DeCaro talks eagerly about his plans for Connecticut's newest community bank.
With much of the state's economy still in the tank and its loan market flat, the 51-year-old founder and chairman of Patriot National Bank is bucking a trend of consolidation that is sweeping over most of New England.
With his sermons about the evils of large bank domination in Stamford and his lofty claims about the uniqueness of Patriot, Mr. DeCaro has convinced regulators and investors that Patriot will be different, and now he's out to prove it.
Patriot, which opened the doors of its red-brick corner building at the beginning of September, is the first nationally chartered institution to open in Connecticut in five years.
Chase Manhattan Corp., New York, opened a subsidiary in 1991, but the last start-up was approved in 1989.
Several state-chartered banks have been approved, but federal regulators have rejected two other national applications in the past six years.
Mr. DeCaro, however, fervently believes in his bank's ability to survive - and he loves to talk about it.
Sporting a splashy tie, Mr. DeCaro does not fit the image of a button-down banker. He drives his own car around town, politely spurning a board member's offer of a limousine.
"Nah," Mr. DeCaro said, waving his hand as he drove. "That's not what this bank is about."
For Mr. DeCaro, the bank is about making local residents feel that they know their banker again.
He points out indignantly that in the past year, four banks in the Stamford area have either closed or been bought by Shawmut National Corp. of Boston or First Fidelity Bancorp. of Lawrenceville, N.J.
Other out-of-state giants in Stamford include Chase Manhattan Corp. of New York and Fleet Financial Group, Providence, R.I.
Out-of-state banks virtually dominate the region, he said.
Now Mr. DeCaro and Patriot's other organizers' hope to capitalize on what they
perceive as customers' dissatisfaction with the dominance of the out-of-towners.
"When you have that kind of turbulence, the opportunity to start a new bank is there," said Constantine "Dean" Remoundos, Patriot's president and CEO.
In fact, Mr. DeCaro managed to attract 1,200 investors in less than one year, surprising some analysts who predicted a cool reception to new bank stocks.
Those investors, together with outsiders brought in through a "best efforts" sale by Stamford Co. in NewT York, pitched in $7.4 million in capital.
"The bank is being driven by a businessman," said Stamford Co. investment banker Lawrence J. Zaffuto. "Patriot doesn't necessarily have the banking mentality that got a lot of people into trouble."
While local officials say the bank is supported by the community, competitors have mixed views.
Although Patriot received its charter in March 1993, the public offering was delayed until November 1993 by a zoning action filed by Greenwich Federal Savings and Loan, which had a branch across the street.
Greenwich claimed that Patriot's building had a longstanding contract with it that barred a bank.
Patriot fought back, pointing out that a bank had existed there 20 years earlier. The zoning board rejected Greenwich's claim.
Mr. DeCaro claims that Greenwich, which was about to be bought by First Fidelity, just didn't want the competition, but officials at First Fidelity declined to comment.
Even some analysts question the wisdom of starting a new bank at this time.
"Most people would argue that there are too many banks today. Hence the trend that we see throughout the state of bank consolidation," said Stanley T. Walls, executive vice president of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc., in Hartford.
Pointing with exuberant pride to what he considers the bank's distinctive features, however, Mr. DeCaro feels the bank will succeed.
He and other organizers collected a diverse group of community leaders to serve on an unusual 58-member advisory board that includes a police officer, a gardner, two restaurateurs, real estate developers, a cardiologist, priest, rabbi, public school teacher, several contractors, and a clothing store owner.
"Each of us has been active here for 30 to 50 years, and we believe that gives us an understanding of our market that no New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island bank could have," Mr. DeCaro said.
Adding to the cooperation with the board is an aura of mutual respect, not to mention a jovial sense of humor, that pervades all levels of the bank's management.
"You've got oil and water and a little vinegar mixed in," Mr. Remoundos said, referring to Mr. DeCaro, himself, and CFO Philip W. Wolford.
"The team comes together like salad dressing."
Patriot's unique blend doesn't stop with its management. There's also its inexpensive equipment, much of which was salvaged with jackhammers from three closed bank branches and a subsidiary of General Electric Capital that occupied the threestory building until recently.
"You can see the scars on the equipment," Mr. DeCaro said, pointing excitedly.
On the other hand, business plans range from typical bank activities, including home mortgages and Small Business Administration lending, to targeted efforts at Stamford's ethnic communities, with bank executives who speak Greek, Spanish, French, Italian, and Polish.
In addition, Mr. DeCaro plans to offer long-term, high-end car loans above $20,000 for Fairfield County's wealthy residents, rather than compete with large banks for the lower-end loans.
Noting banks' past problems with asset quality, however, Mr. DeCaro said he hopes to book and then sell all first mortgages car loans, and SBA loans on the secondary market to avoid the losses that afflicted so many other bankers.
His cautious business sense, talkative style, and affable personality have already made Mr. DeCaro and his start-up appeal ing to local investors and customers.
"You get the feeling that this is going to be successful," Mr. Zaffuto said. "He makes things happen. He knows how to talk to people, to make decisions. He knows how to roll up his sleeve and get into the mud and get the job done."
What really makes Mr. DeCaro unique among his banking colleagues, however, is his past experience in that field - or more noticeably, the lack thereof
His only bank experience before Patriot was a two-year stint at First Stamford Bank and Trust, whose president asked him to handle the bank's securities portfolio and head the new-business development department.
He left the bank in 1978, one year before it was bought by People's Mutual Holdings Bridgeport.
In fact, Mr. DeCaro isn't interested in the minutiae of the business, preferring to conduct an info.'mal meeting of his employees before the bank opens, giving a pep talk that could have come from a National Football League coach, and dismissing the regulatory details of the bank's first federal inspection with a wave of his hand and a jocular "Whatever."
"Does anyone know why they care about this?" he asked at one point.
What Mr. DeCaro doesn't have in banking experience is compensated for, supporters say, by what he knows about running a business.
"I had the experience of seeing a little bank start up, grow, mature, and then get taken over," he said, referring to First Stamford.
Mr. DeCaro applied that expefience over the next 12 years, buying or founding'a travel agency, car wash, car leasing company, condommiums, multifamily houses, and nine car dealerships before selling all of them in 1989, when he suspected that New England's bubble would burst.
He spent the next two year as a financial consultant to several companies before he and a group of 20 local leaders conceived of Patriot in the fall of 1991.
His persistence grows out of a sense of duty to his family. Born and raised six miles north in Greenwich, Mr. DeCaro is an only child and the youngest of 46 cousins on his father's side.
None of those cousins could afford to attend college, he said, so they pinned the family's hopes on him, even helping his parents to pay for his schooling at Boston College, where he earned a degree in accounting, and at Fordham University School of Law.
"I'm like the token," he said.
