New Bank Irvine targeting Chinese immigrants, counts prominent backers

FINANCE: Bank Irvine touts American standards

The first full-service bank founded by mainland Chinese immigrants in the U.S., and which targets similar customers, has opened its doors in Orange County.

Bank Irvine, a state-chartered, FDIC-insured full-service commercial bank, on Nov. 21 inaugurated its headquarters at 6201 Oak Canyon St., in Irvine.

“Irvine is a fast-growing city, and we realized there are a lot of Chinese immigrants who have a lot of needs,” Bank Irvine Vice Chairman Charlie Zhang told the Business Journal.

“Chinese culture, American standards will make Bank Irvine the hometown bank for our community.” It is the second of two banks in recent months

that have started operations in Orange County.

Beach Cities Commercial Bank, which has opened an office in Irvine, isn’t yet fully licensed to operate, according to the state’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.

Bank Irvine is licensed to operate, department officials told the Business Journal.

Consolidation Opportunity

In recent years, the number of banks with headquarters in Orange County has shrunk through consolidation.

The number of community banks in Orange County and Los Angeles County has fallen 43% to 56 in the past decade, according to Bank Irvine in a filing with regulators.

Proponents of the new banks say this void creates an opportunity to provide specialized services to certain groups.

While Beach Cities Commercial Bank is targeting doctors and lawyers, Bank Irvine says it’s making loans to small businesses with revenue of less than $1 million in areas of low to moderate income.

The bank says it offers a variety of products and services including personal banking, business banking, home mortgage loans, business and commercial lending, online and mobile banking, debit cards and international wires.

Prominent Investors

Bank Irvine was capitalized with $30.4 million; the bank doesn’t have any investor with a larger than 10% stake, according to regulatory filings.

“The bank’s directors have significant ties to the Chinese-American community,” company regulatory filings say.

“In the early stages, they approached me,” Zhang said. “Within 11 months, they got it off the ground.”

Bank Irvine has several prominent executives and investors, including Zhang, a wellknown area philanthropist and arts patron who founded the fast-food restaurant chain Pick Up Stix, which he sold for $50 million. He now runs locally based investment firm Zion Enterprises. Also backing the new venture is Andrew Cherng, the billionaire founder and chairman of another Chinese fast-food chain, Rosemead’s Panda Restaurant Group.

“Our investment is based on the belief that local accessibility to credit markets and banking services is important to the API community in the area,” Glenn Inanaga, chief administrative officer of the Cherng Family Trust, told the Business Journal.

Cherng, whose family owns a secondary home in OC and has other local investments, is on the bank’s advisory board along with Rey Nea, chairman of ATN Holding Inc.; Hao Tang, a partner in Titan Golden Capital; Ronnie Lam, managing partner of Lamco Holding LLC; and Zheng Zhao, owner of the Wah Hung Group.

Real estate and international reports have suggested that some advisory board members, besides Cherng, are approaching billionaire status.

Exec Team

The bank’s top executives include Chief Executive Jianyin “Paul” Peng, who’s been a banker for 26 years, including serving in lead executive management roles for U.S. operations of Chinese banks, and Chief Credit Officer Charles Fenton, well known in OC banking circles as a CEO at prior banks like Blue Gate Bank in Costa Mesa and TomatoBank in Alhambra.

“With Bank Irvine planting its roots in Orange County, Paul and his team will facilitate others to invest in this important neighborhood as well, and we are happy to support that initiative,” Inanaga said.

The bank’s chairman is Patrick Fields, who has 40 years of legal experience representing clients in financial services and international trade for offices of non-U.S.-based banks and other lenders in California.

Other board directors include Ching “Lisa” Chen, who has 29 years of experience in business development and is a member of advisory council of USC Risk Management Program; Zhengyu “Helen” Liu, who has 20 years of banking experience, including credit risk management, in the U.S. and China; Stephen Lu, who has management expertise in a variety of business fields in Southern California; and Stephen Sham, former mayor of Alhambra.

The 2019 Census indicated 44% of the total Irvine population is composed of Asian Americans—one-third of which, or some 35,732 people, are of Chinese descent.

“The growth in the number of Chinese-American population and businesses, coupled with the contraction in number of local banks and a lack of locally based full-service banks that are focused on serving the Chinese-Americans from Mainland China, provides a favorable environment for the establishment of the bank,” Bank Irvine said. ■