De novo activity is strong for the second year in a row.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. approved applications for deposit insurance for 14 new banks in 2018. Eight banks have opened this year, including Piermont Bank and Trustar Bank in recent days, and seven other organizing groups have submitted paperwork.
Regulators, including FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams, have sounded more receptive to new-bank formation.
“I do not profess to know what the right number of banks in the U.S. is, but I recognize that, like many competitive industries, a dynamic banking sector needs new startups entering the marketplace,” McWilliams recently wrote in a BankThink opinion piece for American Banker.
The business models are varied. Grasshopper Bank in New York aims to back innovative companies around the country, while Watermark Bank in Oklahoma City and Mi Bank in Bloomfield, Mich., are focused on their local markets.
Here is an update on the de novos that have opened, or plan to do so, in 2019.