Poppy Bank, a community bank based in Santa Rosa, opened its first stand-alone branches in Los Angeles County last month in Santa Monica and Calabasas, with its third opening next month in Pasadena.
Poppy began expanding locally a few years ago with the opening of two locations within Ralphs stores in Westwood and Long Beach, but these recent openings solidify the bank’s presence in L.A.
Chief Executive Khalid Acheckzai said Santa Monica, Pasadena and Calabasas particularly caught the bank’s eye because of the loan demand in the areas as well as the cities’ economies and communities.
Poppy Bank specializes in creating personal deposit portfolios with a full spectrum of products and services including treasury management and lending across a number of industries.
Recently included on Inc.’s list of the top 5,000 growing private companies in the country, Poppy has been steadily expanding in terms of its assets and physical presence.
In the nearly 10 years Acheckzai has been with the company, Poppy has grown its assets from around $900 million to about $6.5 billion, he said, noting a 20-25% annual growth rate.
Acheckzai is aware that online banking has changed the nature and need for branches. While customers may not need to go to a physical branch all that often, they find comfort in knowing that they can for more complex transactions and decisions.
“We’re opening branches at a time when frankly many banks are actually closing branches. What distinguishes us is we’re not putting them on every street corner,” Acheckzai said.
“We’re strategically making sure that as we expand through the state that there’s a branch within five to 10 miles of everyone and we’re still in the process of filling the gaps,” he added.
One standout for Poppy is that it offers Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing, which enables improvements to properties that lower energy costs, save water and protect buildings against extreme weather events.
While many non-bank lenders participate in C-PACE, Acheckzai said Poppy was the first bank in California to be approved for this type of lending.
An important part of expanding through the state is still maintaining the essence of a community bank. Some ways Poppy gets involved in the different areas it moves into is providing local financial literacy programs, supporting nonprofits and sponsoring community programming.
“That’s really key for me and for us as a bank is to really get involved with the communities. We hire branch managers and a team and our expectation is that they will be from that community and be really involved in the community,” Acheckzai said.
Other areas Poppy is eyeing for expansion include Thousand Oaks, Manhattan Beach, Brea, Newport Beach and Santa Barbara.
For now, Acheckzai said Poppy will stay committed to growing in California before considering national expansion and will have 35 branches across the state by year’s end.
