Navy Federal Credit Union, the world’s largest credit union with about $54 billion in assets and 4 million members, continues growing in San Diego.
The Virginia-based institution added some 30,000 members in the past year and a half to bring its total to 330,000 in San Diego County, making it the biggest credit union by membership.
NFCU increased its overall membership by about 1 million in the past two years, says Cutler Dawson, NFCU’s chief executive, who was in San Diego recently to visit operations, and check up on his vacation home in Coronado.
About three years ago, NFCU expanded its presence here when it assumed control of USA Federal CU, giving it seven new branches. Today, NFCU operates 19 branches in the county, including a newly opened one in Miramar.
This year, they’ll open another in Point Loma, and consider a few other sites in the South Bay and East County, Dawson said.
On the USA Fed deal that included branches in Japan and South Korea, Dawson said it went smoothly. “And we kept all the employees who wanted to stay with us,” he said.
Expansion in Southern California would seem to be a no-brainer given the impressive lending numbers NFCU has racked up this year.
Last year, NFCU did about $10 billion in mortgage loans, up from $6 billion in 2011. This year, it’s on track to break $12 billion, Dawson said.
On the consumer side, the institution is also breaking records this year, originating $3 billion in that category, including $2.3 billion through the end of May.
NFCU said it did $527 million in auto loans in May alone. Not only are more consumers feeling more confident about their personal situations, interest rates remain at historic lows, Dawson said. NFCU is offering a 1.49 percent rate for 36 months on new cars for the best borrowers.
Another loan product Dawson extolled was the Home Buyers Choice mortgage, which provides 100 percent financing for qualified borrowers. The rate may be a bit more because of the zero down payment, but it’s something that resonates with many of its members. “We’re very careful about this type of loan, and have had a very low delinquency since we started the program,” he said.
As for his own home purchase in Coronado, it was in 1986 when he was a commander in the Navy and prices were still affordable, Dawson said. Before taking the helm of NFCU in 2004, Dawson had a 34-year career in the Navy.
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SBA increases ceiling on size standards: Qualifying for a small business loan got a lot easier for some 17,000 companies after the U.S. Small Business Administration amended rules covering what is considered small in four sectors and one subsector.
The size criteria pertain to the maximum size a business can be, measured by revenue and assets, to be considered “small” by the SBA. The new standards will enable more businesses to obtain small business status and qualify for an SBA guaranteed loan, the agency said.
In many of the industries, the changes are dramatic. For example, in the commercial banking and credit card issuing industry, the SBA increased the maximum size from $175 million to $500 million in assets.
Within the sector made up of agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, the maximum size for businesses engaged in fin fishing was increased from $4 million to $19 million; for postharvest crop activities, from $7 million to $25.5 million.
The revisions take effect July 22. To find out more about the changes, go to www.regulations.gov.
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San Diego Trust sale approved: More than 90 percent of shareholders of San Diego Trust Bank approved the sale of the bank to Irvine-based Pacific Premier Bancorp at a special shareholders meeting June 21. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of this month, said Steven Gardner, Pacific Premier’s chief executive.
The transaction that pays SDT shareholders an aggregate $30.6 million for the $211 million asset bank was first announced in March and had received the approval of all the regulatory bodies.
Gardner says the price, which was 1.19 times SDT’s tangible book value, was about the median based on recent bank acquisitions. It’s the fourth acquisition for PPB in the past two years, and will increase its size to about $1.6 billion, and 13 branches in Southern California and a single office in Dallas.
Nearly all of SDT’s staff and its three branches are being retained. CEO Mike Perry is leaving; he walks away with a golden parachute valued at nearly $7 million.
Gardner says he expects the bank that takes the Pacific Premier name to double in size in the next two to three years.
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Small Change: PacTrust Bancorp, parent of Pacific Trust Bank, formerly based in Chula Vista, said it’s issuing 3.5 million shares of common stock to raise about $46 million for acquiring banks, supporting its growth, and for general corporate purposes … A few more awards from last month’s Small Business Week: George Chandler Leadership Award, Gunnar Schalin of San Diego Contracting Opportunities Center; Tony Vigil Small Business Advocacy Award, Carlos Figari of the Imperial Valley Small Business Development Center; Community Service, Ruben Barrales, president of Grow Elect; SBA Lender of Year 7(a), Wells Fargo Bank; SBA Lender of Year 504, CDC Small Business Finance Corp; BID Business of Year, Bistro Sixty on the Boulevard.
Send any news about locally based banks to Mike Allen via email at
mallen@sdbj.com. He can be reached
at 858-277-6359.