An Orange County banker is helping brokerage Wedbush Morgan Securities set up a banking unit in Southern California.
Douglas “Tad” Lowrey, a former Brea banker and now a consultant for Fullerton Community Bank on governmental affairs, is working with Los Angeles-based Wedbush on the plan.
Lowrey, the proposed chief executive for the Wedbush bank, is helping to put together a preliminary application that the company plans to submit to regulators.
“I can’t say when we’ll file (an application with the state), or where it’ll be based, or its name,” said Lowrey, who was appointed in December to fill a vacant seat on the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco’s board of directors.
“I can safely say we’ll file something this year,” said Lowrey of the Wedbush bank proposal.
Lowrey, 53, is the former chief executive of Brea’s Jackson Federal Bank from 1998 to 2004.
Getting into banking isn’t new for Wedbush and others outside the sector. Federal barriers to setting up a bank have been eased in recent years.
The highest-profile company looking to start a bank is Wal-Mart Stores Inc. It has applied to form an industrial bank in Utah. The state is home to 31 industrial banks, including one owned by Target Corp.
Other companies running banks or thrifts include BMW AG, General Motors Acceptance Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG and Harley-Davidson Inc., which runs a thrift in Nevada called Eaglemark Savings Bank.
Wedbush manages more than $12 billion in assets.
,Pat Maio
