Los Angeles County’s so-called ethnic banks have been making bold moves as they look to bulk up and branch out.
For starters, the country’s two largest Korean-American lenders, Koreatown’s BBCN Bank and Wilshire Bank, agreed to merge last year and will have more than $12 billion in assets when the deal closes.
Others have expanded their footprints. Downtown L.A.’s Preferred Bank, which has long served the Chinese American community, picked up its first bank and branch outside of California last year in New York.
Korean-American lender Hanmi Bank used its acquisition of United Central Bank in 2014 to establish a presence in a handful of states and expand in others including Texas and Washington.
New products and services have also been launched as these institutions aim to grow alongside the accumulating wealth of the immigrant communities they initially aimed to serve. Some remain focused on that customer base, while others are positioning themselves to capture broader business by courting other minority groups or so-called mainstream clients.
In fact, some don’t want to be categorized as an ethnic bank at all. While Pasadena’s East West Bank readily points to its Chinese roots, the $32 billion lender prefers to be considered a top regional bank.
All of these diverse strategies are being shepherded by a group of chief executives who themselves have unique stories.
Some spent the majority of their careers abroad, while others immigrated to the United States as children. Detours into physics, law, accounting and oil were also taken before some of these individuals found themselves at the helm of a bank.
Yet as varied as their strategies and backgrounds are, these executives are all guiding institutions that have grown tremendously while competing against much larger national and international institutions.
The Business Journal sat down with these L.A. banking leaders to discuss their paths to the top and how their banks have evolved through the years.
