- Key insight: The new offices in California and Nevada represent Customers Bancorp's first presence west of the Rocky Mountains.
- Expert quote: "A lot of these bankers are realizing that brick-and-mortar is the best way for growing new relationships, for the originations along with the cross-selling products," Haberfeld Senior Executive Vice President Preston Afrank said.
- Supporting data: In addition to the new offices, Customers has also onboarded seven banking teams so far in 2025.
Customers Bancorp is taking Horace Greely's famous advice and going west.
The $24.3 billion-asset, West Reading, Pennsylvania-based company announced the opening of five new offices in California and Nevada Tuesday.
The new locations — in Irvine, Sherman Oaks and Sacramento in California, as well as Reno and Las Vegas in Nevada — are intended to deepen the company's footprint in what it termed high-opportunity regions and position it to serve more business owners and entrepreneurs. They represent Customers' initial presence west of the Rocky Mountains.
"We are committed to being where our clients are and where opportunity is growing," Sam Sidhu, the president and CEO of Customers Bank, said in a press release. "Opening these new offices is a natural extension of our business strategy and reinforces our belief that great banking combines high-tech capabilities with local, high-touch relationships."
The new locations also reflect Customers' ongoing transformation from a regional, Mid-Atlantic institution into a business bank with national capabilities. They follow expansions into North Carolina, Chicago, Dallas and Denver. Customers also maintains several business lines that operate on a nationwide basis.
Though they offer both deposit and loan services, the new locations are classified as limited purpose offices with a focus on serving commercial clients, a Customers spokesperson wrote in an email to American Banker.
With its announcement Tuesday, Customers joins a lengthening list of regional and money-center banks pursuing significant expansion initiatives. Earlier this month, PNC Financial Group
Similarly, Bank of America said in September it
"Banks across the country are trying to figure out how to optimize their branch networks," Preston Afrank, senior executive vice president at Haberfeld, a Lincoln, Nebraska-based bank consulting, sales and analytics firm, told American Banker. "A lot of these bankers are realizing that brick-and-mortar is the best way for growing new relationships, for the originations along with the cross-selling products."
In Customers' case, it's been adding banking teams in addition to brick-and-mortar offices. The company onboarded seven teams totaling 30 bankers in the first nine months of 2025. The most recent hire, announced in October, was a title-industry banking team.
Customers reported third-quarter net income totaling $73.7 million, up 71% from the same period in 2024. The spike in profits was driven by surging growth of both loans and deposits, due in part to production from the new banking teams, Hovde Analyst David Bishop wrote in a recent research note.
Sam Sidhu is set to become CEO of Customers Bancorp in January, succeeding his father, Jay Sidhu.
"It is exactly these sorts of financial results that gave me the confidence last quarter to announce my transition to Executive Chairman beginning in 2026," Jay Sidhu said last month on a conference call with analysts.
