Until now, wealthy individuals in Fairfield County have depended mainly on out-of-state or larger regional banks for private bank services. But a group of bankers recently applied to the state Department of Banking to open a new private bank that would focus on middle-market individuals and businesses – those with between $1 million and $20 million in assets.
Stephen Carta, president and chief operating officer of Fairfield-based Harbor Bank and Trust, the new institution, has been in the banking industry for 30 years and used to run Bank of America’s private bank in New England. Carta and the bank’s other organizers are hoping the new bank will fill a much-needed niche in the area.
“I saw a real opportunity here in Fairfield County,” Carta said.
Carta is originally from Southport and has worked in Connecticut for most of his career.
“I know this market inside and out,” he noted. “What I’m trying to build here is a regional community bank.”
But it will not be a retail bank. Instead, it will focus on private banking.
“We are not a retail bank, nor do we aspire to be one,” Carta said.
‘Tremendous Need’
The organizers of Harbor Bank and Trust plan to use technology to deliver a high level of private banking to individuals, entrepreneurs and nonprofit groups, and hope to eventually have branches across Connecticut’s Shoreline area.
“Our goal is to have offices from Greenwich to Stonington,” Carta said.
Lending, from mortgages to business loans, will be a big part of the new bank, Carta said, and will be packaged with trusts and investments. The institution will appeal to those in the middle market, because those people or businesses have had to go to larger banks for their private banking needs, and at many of those, any client with under $10 million in assets is directed to a call center.
“There really is tremendous need,” Carta said.
There are private banks in the area, most of which are based in New York, but they tend to focus on the upper end of the market, he said. But Harbor Bank and Trust will service most loans locally, and because decisions on loans also will be made locally, organizers hope turnaround times will be less than 48 hours.
“Because our management is all local, all the banking decisions are made here locally,” Carta said. “We have a real advantage over those large institutions.”
The bank also will offer services like check-scanning technology to its clients. Some of the institution’s customers will receive scanners, so they can make deposits from their places of business or homes.
“You can bank with us from anywhere in the country,” Carta said.
In addition, the bank will work with outside firms to offer a bigger menu of investments. That will differ from how most banks provide wealth management services, because they often offer only the bank’s own products.
“We can really offer a much broader approach,” Carta said.
The bank has raised $3 million in seed capital, and hopes to raise between $20 million and $30 million before opening. Regional banks are willing to raise a big portion of that amount, Carta said, and he hopes to raise half of the money locally. Many people in the area have expressed interest in investing, he said.
The bank’s organizers have secured the institution’s permanent office at 96 Old Post Road in Fairfield. Carta said he expects to begin raising capital early in the first quarter of 2007, and hopes the bank will be open by the end of the first quarter.
Organizers have applied for a state charter, and are now going through a feasibility study.
De novo banks have been opening in Connecticut at the rate of about one per year since 2004, when The Connecticut Bank & Trust Co. opened in Hartford. It was followed by the opening of RBS National Bank’s opening in Stamford last year and the opening of the Darien Rowayton Bank earlier this year.
In Connecticut, three de novos have applied for a temporary certificate of authority, which allows them to raise capital. Higher One Bank in New Haven, a bank that would back a business that fuses college IDs and debit cards, has extended its certificate for several years. The Bank of Greenwich received a certificate last year, and Quinnipiac Bank & Trust Co. of Hamden received one earlier this year.
