Powerhouse Koreatown Bank to Form?

Koreatown’s Hanmi Financial Corp. is proposing a $1.6-billion merger with its rival BBCN Bancorp Inc. to keep it from being acquired by another Koreatown bank, Wilshire Bancorp Inc., the Los Angeles Times reports. If Hanmi is successful, the resulting bank would be the largest Korean American bank in the country and among L.A.’s biggest.