Mohammad Tariq Leads Hanmi Bank’s Texas Market Expansion
LOS ANGELES: Hanmi Bank is expanding its presence in the Texas region. Hanmi Financial Corporation (NSDAQ: HAFC), the holding company for the bank has recently announced its 3rd quarter earnings reporting solid loan and deposit growth and strong asset quality. Its 3rd quarter net income was $14.0 million ($0.44 per diluted share), with 5.8% increase in loans receivable and 47.1% increase in new loan production compared to 2nd quarter. One of the contributing factors in Hanmi’s strong growth was due to its acquisition of CBI, a holding company of United Central Bank, a Texas based bank which Hanmi completed in August of last year.
Leading Hanmi’s Texas market growth is Mohammad Tariq, Executive Vice President. He is a driven banker with a deep understanding of customers’ business needs. Having resided in the region for more than 30 years, Tariq knows from experience that Texas is one of the nation’s fastest growing economies with ample business growth opportunities.
Tariq joined Hanmi Bank over a year ago. He chose to join Hanmi because of its successful track record in supporting the needs of Asian American owned businesses and their communities. Hanmi Bank was well established as one of the largest Korean American banks and was actively seeking to expand its customer base by strengthening its reach to other Asian communities. Tariq knew his expertise in supporting the Asian community would fit well with the bank’s expansion strategies.
One of the biggest challenges Tariq faced was to introduce Hanmi Bank into the competitive banking landscape in Texas. Although the United Central Bank acquisition provided Hanmi with a nine branch network in the Dallas, Houston and Austin region, Hanmi Bank was little known in their communities. Drawing from his management experience, Tariq knew that establishing a strong team was crucial in determining the success of the bank. “Hanmi is a community bank that heavily emphasizes relationship banking. We have focused much of 2015 in building a strong team, so that we can both understand and communicate with the diverse markets we serve in Texas. By doing so, we will form lasting relationships with our customers, their friends and families”, said Tariq.
Combined with his efforts and the bank’s recent marketing campaigns in Texas region, Hanmi is steadily gaining interest from the Asian communities. C. G. Kum, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “Hanmi’s strong 3rd quarter results were driven by the continued success of our strategic expansion initiatives, improving credit quality and the positive impact of repositioning our balance sheet since the CBI acquisition. Meaningful loan production from our operations in Texas and Illinois, along with the strong performance of our new Healthcare Banking Group, augmented solid growth in our core markets in California.”
Prior to joining Hanmi Bank, Tariq served as the Chief Lending Officer at MetroBank, N.A. (now East West Bank), then the largest Asian ethnic community bank in Texas with $1.1 billion in assets, where he was responsible for loan portfolio growth, commercial lending strategies and marketing plans in the Houston and Dallas metropolitan areas. After MetroBank, Tariq was Executive Vice President and Chief Loan Officer at Golden Bank, N.A. (formerly Texas First National Bank). Tariq received graduate banking education from the University of Pennsylvania’s Stonier Graduate School of Banking and holds a Leadership Certification from the Wharton School of Business.