RBB Bancorp (‘Bancorp’) operates as a bank holding company for Royal Business Bank (‘bank’) that provides business-banking and consumer products and services predominantly to the Asian-centric communities through full service branches located in Los Angeles County, Orange County and Ventura County in California, Las Vegas (Nevada), the New York City metropolitan areas, Chicago (Illinois), Edison (New Jersey) and Honolulu (Hawaii).
The bank’s products and services include commercial and investor...
RBB Bancorp (‘Bancorp’) operates as a bank holding company for Royal Business Bank (‘bank’) that provides business-banking and consumer products and services predominantly to the Asian-centric communities through full service branches located in Los Angeles County, Orange County and Ventura County in California, Las Vegas (Nevada), the New York City metropolitan areas, Chicago (Illinois), Edison (New Jersey) and Honolulu (Hawaii).
The bank’s products and services include commercial and investor real estate loans, business loans and lines of credit, Small Business Administration (SBA) 7A and 504 loans, mortgage loans, trade finance, and a full range of depository accounts, including specialized services, such as remote deposit, E-banking, mobile banking, and treasury management services. The company's another wholly-owned banking subsidiary is RBB Asset Management Company (RAM).
The company operates as a minority depository institution (MDI), which is defined by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as a federally insured depository institution where 51% or more of the voting stock is owned by minority individuals, or a majority of the board of directors is minority, and the community that the institution serves is predominantly minority.
In addition, the company has been designated a community development financial institution (CDFI). It has established a CDFI advisory board to assist the bank in finding organizations to support low-to-moderate income individuals.
The company operates various banking offices in Arcadia, Cerritos, Diamond Bar, Irvine, Los Angeles, Monterey Park, Oxnard, Rowland Heights, San Gabriel, Silver Lake, Torrance, and Westlake Village, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Manhattan, Brooklyn, Flushing, and Elmhurst, New York; the Chinatown and Bridgeport neighborhoods of Chicago, Illinois; Edison, New Jersey; and Honolulu, Hawaii. The company's primary source of revenue is providing loans to customers, who are predominantly small and middle-market businesses and individuals.
The company generates its revenue primarily from interest received on loans and, to a lesser extent, from interest received on investment securities. It also derives income from noninterest sources, such as fees received in connection with various lending and deposit services, loan servicing, gain on sales of loans, and wealth management services.
Strategic Plan
The company’s strategic plan contains the following key elements:
Provide commercial banking services and products primarily to small to midsized commercial enterprises operating within Asian-centric communities, or that can benefit from the company’s areas of core lending expertise;
Focus on a target market consisting of businesses that are located in southern California, the San Francisco Bay area, the Chicago metropolitan area, the New York metropolitan area (including northern New Jersey), Nevada, and Hawaii; provide or receive goods or services to or from Asian countries, primarily Chinese-speaking regions, such as China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan; and
Prioritize using bankers with strong market knowledge who are dedicated to serving the local markets in which it operates; and provide five main lending products, including Commercial real estate (CRE), Construction and land development (C&D), Commercial and Industrial (C&I), Single-family residential (SFR), and Small Business Administration (SBA).
Lending Activities
The company seeks to be the premier provider of lending products and services in its market areas and serve the credit needs of high-quality business and individual borrowers in the communities that it serves. The company’s lending strategy is to maintain a broadly diversified loan portfolio based on the type of customer (e.g., businesses versus individuals), type of loan product (e.g., owner-occupied commercial real estate, commercial loans, etc.), geographic location, and industries in which its business customers are engaged. The company principally focuses its lending activities on loans that it originates from borrowers located in its market areas.
The company has five principal lending areas:
Construction and Land Development Loans: The company’s C&D loans consist of residential construction, commercial construction, and land acquisition and development construction. Interest reserves are generally established on real estate construction loans.
Commercial Real Estate Loans: The company offers real estate loans for owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied commercial property, including loans secured by single-family residences for business purposes, multi-family residential property, and construction and land development loans. The real estate securing its existing CRE loans include a wide variety of property types, such as multi-family properties, mixed-use residential and commercial, mobile home parks, hotels, offices, apartments, warehouses, and retail centers.
SFR Loans: The company originates qualified SFR mortgage loans and non-qualified, alternative documentation SFR mortgage loans through wholesale channels and retail channels, including its branch network, to accommodate the needs of the Asian-centric market. The qualified SFR mortgage loans are 15-year and 30-year conforming mortgages and may be sold directly to the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC).
The company originates non-qualified SFR mortgage loans generally to hold for investment. The loans generated through its retail branch network are to its customers, many of whom establish a deposit relationship with it.
The company has sold non-qualified SFR mortgage loans to other Asian-American banks and other investors. SFR mortgage loans held for sale (HFS) consist primarily of first trust deed mortgages on SFR properties located in California, New York, and New Jersey. SFR mortgage loans HFS are generally sold with the servicing rights retained.
Commercial and Industrial Loans: The company has significant expertise in small to middle market C&I lending. Its success is the result of its products and market expertise. The company focuses on delivering high-quality, customized, and quick turnaround service for its clients while maintaining an appropriate balance between disciplined underwriting and flexibility and responsiveness to its clients. The company’s trade financing unit provides international letters of credit, SWIFT, export advice, trade finance discounts, and foreign exchange to many of its C&I loan customers.
SBA Loans: The company is designated as a Preferred Lender under the SBA Preferred Lender Program. It offers mostly SBA 7(a) variable-rate loans. The company originates all loans to hold for investment and moves loans to available for sale as management decides which loans to sell. The company generally sells the guaranteed portion of the SBA loans that it originates. The company’s SBA loans are typically made to small-sized manufacturing, wholesale, retail, hotel/motel, and service businesses for working capital needs or business expansions. SBA loans can have any maturity up to 25 years. Typically, non-real estate secured loans mature in less than 10 years. Collateral may include inventory, accounts receivable, and equipment, as well as personal guarantees. From time to time, the company also originates SBA 504 loans.
Deposits
The company offers traditional depository products, including checking, savings, money market, and time deposits, to individuals, businesses, municipalities, and other entities through its branch network. In addition, the company offers retail deposit products where customers are able to achieve FDIC insurance for balances on deposit in excess of the $250,000 FDIC limit through the Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service (CDARS) and Insured Cash Sweeps (ICS) programs. Deposits at the bank are insured by the FDIC up to statutory limits. Time deposits include deposits acquired through both retail and wholesale channels. Wholesale channels include brokered deposits, collateralized deposits from the State of California, and deposits acquired through internet listing services.
Investment Portfolio
The company's investment portfolio consists primarily of U.S. government agency securities, corporate note securities, mortgage-backed securities backed by government-sponsored entities, and taxable and tax-exempt municipal securities.
Other Subsidiaries
In addition to the bank and RAM, the holding company has three statutory business trusts acquired through the company’s business acquisitions as follows:
TFC Statutory Trust: In connection with the company’s 2016 acquisition of TomatoBank and its holding company, TFC, the company acquired the TFC Statutory Trust (the TFC Trust), a statutory business trust that was established by TFC in 2006 as a wholly-owned subsidiary.
FAIC Statutory Trust I: In connection with the company’s 2018 acquisition of FAIB and its holding company, FAIC, the company acquired the FAIC Statutory Trust I (the FAIC Trust I), a statutory business trust that was established by FAIC in 2004 under the laws of Delaware as a wholly-owned subsidiary.
PGBH Trust I: In connection with the company’s 2020 acquisition of PGB and its holding company, PGBH, the company acquired Pacific Global Bank Trust I (PGB Capital Trust I), a statutory business trust that was established by PGB in 2004 under the laws of Delaware as a wholly-owned subsidiary.
In addition, the bank has a wholly-owned subsidiary, FAIB Capital Corp, a real estate investment trust, which was acquired in connection with the 2018 acquisition of FAIC. FAIB Capital Corp. is a New York State corporation formed on August 28, 2013. The purpose of this real estate investment trust is to minimize New York State and local taxes.
Supervision and Regulation
As a bank holding company, Bancorp is registered with, and is subject to regulation by, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) under the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, as amended (BHCA). Under the BHCA, Bancorp is subject to periodic examination by the Federal Reserve. Bancorp is also a bank holding company within the meaning of Section 1280 of the California Financial Code. Therefore, Bancorp and its subsidiaries are subject to examination by, and may be required to file reports with, the DFPI.
The deposit accounts of the bank are insured by the FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) to the maximum extent provided under federal law and FDIC regulations. As a California-chartered FDIC-insured non-member bank, the bank is subject to the examination, supervision, reporting, and enforcement requirements of the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), the chartering authority for California banks, and as a non-member bank, the FDIC.
While the DFPI remains the bank’s primary state regulator, the bank’s operations in these jurisdictions are subject to examination and supervision by local bank regulators, and transactions with customers in those jurisdictions are subject to local laws, including consumer protection laws.
The Dodd-Frank Act has increased the regulatory burden and compliance costs of the company.
In order to maintain Bancorp’s status as a bank holding company, Bancorp and the bank must be well-capitalized, well-managed, and have at least a satisfactory Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rating. The California Financial Code defines control as the power, directly or indirectly, to direct the bank’s management or policies or to vote 25% or more of any class of the bank’s outstanding voting securities.
The bank received a satisfactory rating on its most recent CRA examination, which was conducted in May 2023.
The FDIC uses a performance score and a loss-severity score to calculate an initial assessment rate for the bank. In calculating these scores, the FDIC uses the bank’s capital level and regulatory supervisory ratings and certain financial measures to assess the bank’s ability to withstand asset-related stress and funding-related stress.
The bank is also subject to certain consumer laws and regulations that are designed to protect consumers in transactions with banks. These laws include, among others: Truth in Lending Act; Truth in Savings Act; Electronic Funds Transfer Act; Expedited Funds Availability Act; Equal Credit Opportunity Act; Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act; Fair Housing Act; Fair Credit Reporting Act; Fair Debt Collection Act; Home Mortgage Disclosure Act; Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act; laws regarding unfair and deceptive acts and practices; and usury laws.
The bank is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) of San Francisco.
The company is subject to the disclosure and regulatory requirements of the Securities Act and the Exchange Act, both as administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a company listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, it is subject to NASDAQ listing standards for listed companies. The company is also subject to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, and other federal and state laws and regulations, which address, among other issues, required executive certification of financial presentations, corporate governance requirements for board audit and compensation committees and their members, and disclosure of controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, auditing and accounting, executive compensation, and enhanced and timely disclosure of corporate information. NASDAQ has also adopted corporate governance rules, which are intended to allow stockholders and investors to more easily and efficiently monitor the performance of companies and their directors. Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, management and the company's independent registered public accounting firm are required to assess the effectiveness of the company’s internal control over financial reporting.
History
RBB Bancorp, a California corporation, was founded in 2008. The company was incorporated in 2010.