A Korean-American bank is in the works for Garden Grove.
US Metro would become the first independent bank based in the largely Korean and Vietnamese section of Garden Grove.
US Metro recently received approval from the state’s Department of Financial Institutions to start putting its bank together.
The backers have applied for deposit insurance with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
US Metro has raised $9.2 million to get the bank up and running. The bank doesn’t plan to do a public share offering. Instead, local investors behind US Metro hope to raise $20 million among themselves and their contacts.
The bank is set to open in August, said Dong Il Kim, chief executive of US Metro.
The county has seen several banks targeting ethnic groups open during the past few years. Buena Park-based Uniti Bank was the first bank to form in OC to serve Korean-Americans.
Since starting five years ago, Uniti now has $220 million in assets as of March 31.
William Im, Uniti’s chief executive, forecasts 40% asset growth this year. That’s down from growth of 50% or more during the bank’s early years, when competition wasn’t as fierce.
Uniti also has an office in Garden Grove along Garden Grove Boulevard, a few blocks from where US Metro wants to open. Other Korean-run banks have planted themselves there, too.
Garden Grove and Fullerton, next to Uniti’s Buena Park branch, are hubs for Korean-Americans. OC has about 60,000 Korean-Americans, according to the Census Bureau.
Tae Gi Moon, editor of the Korea Times Los Angeles in Garden Grove, describes US Metro’s opening as part of the emergence of a “Korean Wall Street” in the city.
US Metro plans to serve store owners and other small businesses generating annual sales of $300,000 to $1 million. The bank also plans to open a loan office in L.A.’s Koreatown.
Plans call for branches in Irvine and Newport Beach in a few years, Kim said.
The bank hopes to attract Vietnamese, Chinese and Hispanic customers.
There’s plenty of competition.
Besides Uniti, other Korean banks in the area include branches of Hanmi Bank, part of Los Angeles-based Hanmi Financial Corp.; Los Angeles-based Center Bank, a unit of Center Financial Corp.; and Los Angeles-based Wilshire State Bank, a unit of Wilshire Bancorp Inc.
“More Korean banks are expected to open branches in Garden Grove’s Koreatown in the future,” Moon said.
US Metro plans to open in a shopping mall near Asian superstore Arirang Supermarket, which sells everything from videos, beauty products and jewelry to salted croakers, ginger roots and seaweed.
The bank is looking to remodel a former Salvation Army thrift store at 9866 Garden Grove Blvd. The store is surrounded by ethnic restaurants, a realty agency, health clinic, a Hanmi branch and a club where people play the ancient Chinese board game of Go.
Across the street are Kia and Hyundai dealerships.
Kim, 52, came to the U.S. from his home in the South Korean port city of Pusan in 1980 to pursue a doctorate in economics. He got master’s degrees from California State University, Los Angeles, and State University of New York at Stony Brook.
“I came here to study, not get a job,” Kim said.
He said he started working in L.A.’s Koreatown at a commercial bank and helped straighten out an accounting mess. He ended up staying in the U.S. for good.
Along the way, Kim logged a nearly two-decade career with Pacific Union Bank, an L.A.-based Korean-American bank where he moved up to chief credit officer when Hanmi Bank bought it in 2004. The combined companies created the largest Korean-American bank with $3.4 billion in assets.
