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.
