2 min read February 2023 — Amerant Bank is the largest community bank headquartered in Florida. Invest: spoke with CEO Jerry Plush about the bank’s achievements and opportunities in South Florida, supporting customers and team members given the current market dynamics and the priorities for Amerant in the near term.
What are some of the biggest achievements for Amerant Bank over the past year or so?
The single biggest achievement was getting to the end of what were many milestones that we had set forth beginning in 2021. The company had significant growth. We added four new board members and substantially added to our private banking capabilities at the end of 2021. We grew our deposit share and helped add to our wealth management growth. We’ve announced new branch locations in Key Biscayne, Downtown Miami, and Las Olas Boulevard. We also filed an application with the OCC for our first branch in Tampa, while also launching the transformation of our retail system in Houston, adding a new state-of-the-art location. We also became the Official Bank of the Miami Heat and the Florida Panthers, as well as the Official Hometown Bank of University of Miami Athletics. The goal behind that was to raise brand awareness, while supporting our community. We also strengthened our partnership with United Way Miami, partnering to host the first Amerant Bank 5K last year. It’s critically important to us to give back and be involved in the community. We also made a major commitment in filing our first Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report.
What opportunities are available for Amerant Bank given the current state of the banking sector in South Florida?
There are significant opportunities. What differentiates us are the investments we’re making in our people, technology, and branches and facilities. Many people want to know their banker and have that personal interaction. We’re looking to enhance the customer experience by bringing state-of-the-art technology and service. We’re going through an important core transformation that’ll be complete in May and recently launched our new website. We also added a strong chief digital officer to lead our digital transformation efforts.
Can you expand upon your development plans in South Florida?
We have a few new banking centers in the works for this year. We’re excited to be opening in Downtown Miami. It’s critically important to us to have a flagship branch in the city. We’ll get the halo effect of that branding where people will recognize us and entertain banking with us. Also, we’re opening a branch in Key Biscayne, where we’re looking to build strong private and international banking teams. We’re also looking to add more business development personnel in Broward County, with plans to open a branch on Las Olas Boulevard.
In Tampa, we’ve committed to building a true regional headquarters, similar to what we did in Houston, and are opening a branch there later this year. In Houston, we plan to take another look at some of the branch locations we have and identify additional ones. It’ll be a further build upon what is a good franchise here.
How are you supporting your staff and clients in the current market?
Not surprising, we’re operating in a much higher cost market. We started to look at our own people and put ourselves in their shoes. We provided an across-the-board stipend right before the Thanksgiving holiday. The current market is affecting everyone. It’s incredibly important that we take care of our people first because they’re the lifeblood of the company. We also continue to look for opportunities for our people to work in a hybrid mode.
Regarding our services, we raised our deposit pricing on many different products and ran additional promotions as interest rates rose. We started to roll out products that would enable someone to have a variable rate where it would be a fixed lower rate for the first several years. We’re looking at all we can do to try and be helpful within our organization and communities.
How important is financial literacy?
We are now seeing the beginning of the greatest wealth transfer in history, from baby boomers to the next generation. It’s important for us to offer competitive products to help those people continue to save and build on for their future. As such, it’s increasingly important to provide financial education to all ages and at all levels. It’s never too late to start planning and saving.
What are your top priorities for Amerant Bank for the near term?
We want to grow our market share based on the new additions and the quality work the existing teams have been producing. We’re going to continue to invest in ourselves and look at opportunities. This is a time to be available to customers and provide financing when it may be more difficult to obtain from others. We’ll continue to offer solid financial advice to make sure we get people the right products and services to meet their needs.
Our goal is to make banking with us easy. The changes that we’re making in technology and our digital transformation are critical in this regard. We’re also continuing to build out education opportunities for our people. We rolled out a significant leadership program initiative last year. It’s important to invest in our people to ensure our long-term viability. We want to continue to build brand awareness. We know we have an opportunity to do that in Tampa, Broward and Palm Beach. The Houston marketplace is also an extraordinary opportunity to grow. We’ll continue to build on what we’ve been focused on. If we do that well, it will benefit our shareholders. The goal is happy customers, team members, shareholders and community members.
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