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[Music]
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I'm Edward Warfield the publisher of
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City bills and I'm honored today to
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interview Patricia fck who's the
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president of FBC Bank welcome
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Patricia thank you good to see you good
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to see you you have an impressive
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background give us a little background
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on some of your the highlights of your
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career absolutely love to it's really
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thank you for having me here today uh
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first to start I'm a Northern Virginia
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native I grew up in anandale and my mom
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still lives in the same house that she
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and my dad raised my three brothers and
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my sister and while my dad passed away
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in 2006 he was such a huge influence and
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I have such deep roots here and just
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thrilled to be a part of this community
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and now um you know part of a great bank
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so I started my career I went to a local
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high school and then I went to Virginia
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Tech and I graduated with an accounting
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major and I took my CPA exam and went to
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work for a public accounting firm and
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one of and was an auditor and while I
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didn't love auditing I did get to learn
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a lot about Banking and that's really
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what really started my passion for
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Banking and more specifically Community
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banking so I started out after about
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four years of doing that as a controller
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at a local community bank and I just
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felt so at home just having access to
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being able to work with different people
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as opposed to being on the out side
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looking in working with all the
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different teams of the bank and seeing
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how everything pulls together and and
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how important good data management is
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and to make good decisions and so I
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eventually got an opportunity at another
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bank to be the CFO and as you know this
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is over a 15 or so year period where
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there's a lot of mergers and
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Acquisitions and I was able to really
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learn a lot through that process and had
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an opportunity to be the controller of a
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publicly traded bank that was a
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eventually sold but during that time I
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just got to really dig
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into this the community banking world
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and then then after that bank was sold I
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I met David piger our CEO and he offered
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me the opportunity to be the CFO of this
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denovo and I'd never been a part of a
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denovo and was so excited about being
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really part of something new and
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exciting and there was such a great
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passion
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behind really working with the community
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and having this entrepreneurial spirit
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that David really carries with him so I
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was hooked I was in and uh about five
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years ago after about 10 years David
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gave me the opportunity to be the
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president of the bank and that wasn't
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even I was thrilled uh honored and
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Incredibly excited and ready to take on
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that challenge because it gave me the
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opportunity to reach further out than
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being behind behind the scenes I was
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able to work with the community more and
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meet more customers and work with our
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team to help us grow and be really the
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strongest Community Bank in the market
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that's our goal that's what's really
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important to us to serve our
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community and so can you highlight uh
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some of your experiences during those 16
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years and what are some of the special
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moments that you cherish well we hit a
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billion dollars in total assets in 10
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years and and that translates to a
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compound annual growth rate of about 20%
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a year which is pretty phenomenal really
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it's uh it it exceeds the our peer group
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as far as a growth rate and and
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nationally too it was one of the highest
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growth rates and during that time we
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listed on NASDAQ became a publicly
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traded company we changed our name from
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First Virginia Community Bank to FBC
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bank because we had just completed a
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merger and it was right about the time I
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became president we just Comm completed
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a merger with Columbo bank and that
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allowed us to expand our footprint into
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Baltimore and in Virginia or in Maryland
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and DC so that whole time period was
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incredibly exciting for us bringing in
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new teams and new new employees and
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really expanding our footprint meeting
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new customers like I said listing on
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NASDAQ bringing in a new CFO and really
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building our executive team and our
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entire our entire team and continuing
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that growth rate and making sure that we
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were always building an infrastructure
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to to have the products and services
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that cater to our commercial customers
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whether it's small business or the
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larger businesses and this growth also
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allowed us to venture into more Middle
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Market customers larger customers while
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still really staying true to the small
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business which is incredibly important
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to us that's how we grew that's how we
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were built and that's we're committed to
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that so you've guarded a lot of recent
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press related to technology um so tell
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us about some of the new technology what
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are the benefits that these new
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platforms are providing and and tell us
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about the staff that's involved in the
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mentation of that well first and
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foremost I think it's important to note
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that my my background as a controller
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it's all about data it's all about
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understanding and really utilizing the
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many data points that we collect as a
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bank and that has always been a
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challenge for banks to really get that
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data and have it at hand and be able to
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make quick decisions so one of our first
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Investments large Investments was in a
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dashboard called CLA
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and that gives every employee in our
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bank the ability to every day see their
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world whether it's customer their
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customer base activity of their customer
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base we can look at changes in loans
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changes in deposits the impact of
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interest rates we can look at highlevel
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data Trends Financial Trends to see if
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we're trending the way we expect and to
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be able to drill down this information
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it was important to me as a controller
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but as the president it is critical to
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be able to look at things quickly and
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talk to everybody have everybody on the
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same page and to be able to make
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decisions in this very challenging
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environment and always changing
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environment so that's the backdrop just
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that that investment gives tells a
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little bit about who we are and it helps
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us tell our story and the rest of our
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story is about technology and really
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using it to help Drive our strategic
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plan of being a relationship driven bank
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so every decision we make is how can we
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do that better so that comes down to the
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digital banking platform that we
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invested in the beginning of this year
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and larger Banks use the same platform
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it's incredibly robust and any customer
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can log in wherever they are from their
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car from their phone from their desktop
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wherever they wish and take care of any
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level of banking transaction or business
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transaction they need is a full on cash
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management system that's both secure and
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incred ibly flexible and so that was a
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huge investment and the other piece to
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that is if a customer needs to talk to
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somebody they pick up the phone and they
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get a human they get a person our team
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is incredibly committed to providing
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very hight touch personalized service
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that's who we are that's who we've
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always been but we know we need the
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technology to go along with that so
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that's one example another example is
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what we call lightning lending and it's
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a automated loan decisioning platform
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for small
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businesses doing a small business loan
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is incredibly challenging from managing
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the cost and making it efficient because
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the doing a $50,000 loan takes just as
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much behind the scenes work as a $2
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million loan so it's always been a
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challenge in our industry and this
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platform called numerated that we
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implemented just recently allows us to
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autod decision loans up to half a
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million dollars and it's easy for the
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applicant they just go online at answer
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a few questions and the behind the
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scenes work allows us to get a decision
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in days versus weeks and to fund the
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loan once approved so we're incredibly
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excited about that and it complements
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what we're trying to do like I said
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before stay very very loyal and
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committed to our communities and the
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small businesses but also be available
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and have the tech technology for the
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larger companies that are looking for a
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bank in their community that provide the
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personalized touch there's a you know
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we've provided we have technology in
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place for our construction loan
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customers that's automated they can go
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online and look at their loan and the
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draws and the budget that they built
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they can see everything right at their
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fingertips so can our lenders uh We've
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we've set up online loan origination
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platforms that reach out to the customer
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give makes it very easy for them to
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provide financial information to us so
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we can keep tracker their loans and uh
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asset-based lending it's there's an
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automated process for a customer to
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provide their information so we can tell
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them what level of borrowings they can
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use it's a borrowing based certificate
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but it's an automated process that once
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took eight hours can be done in 10
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minutes all of these things just build
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on what we're trying to do to really
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improve the customer experience save our
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teams time because what we're also doing
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behind the scenes is a lot of Automated
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Business processing to improve our C our
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employees time so that they can be more
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focused on the customer and provide more
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value added time supporting the
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customer while they're using our
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technology so FBC bank has total assets
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of around 2.4 billion you have a
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seasoned experienced executive team give
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us your thoughts on where you'd like to
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see the bank head over the next couple
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of years well we want to continue what
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we've started we want to continue this
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growth trajectory but we want to be
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smart about how we do it this is a
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challenging economic environment as you
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will know with interest rates being
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where they are and it's been a a
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interesting year for banks in general
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with all the press that they've gotten
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and especially earlier in the year so we
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want to be smart about how we grow we
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we're focused on profitability we have
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shareholders we have investors we want
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to enhance shareholder value we want to
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make an incredible work environment for
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our team to keep them motivated and
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excited I think we have one of the best
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teams in the market and we also want to
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continue to provide technology and good
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customer service to our customer base
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and expand it we really we bought
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Columbo because we wanted to be in
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Maryland we see Baltimore as an
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incredible market and we really want to
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make our impact there so some of these
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tools and products that I mentioned we
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want to expand and make sure that our
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customers in those markets and Prospects
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in those markets know us and and get to
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know us better that's that's part of our
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track over the next two years and our
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strategic plan is to to really make a
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bigger impact in in
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Maryland but beyond that we want to
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continue to just be a good strong
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Community Bank that can compete with the
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big Banks I mean in this market it's a
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sophisticated Market there's a lot of
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banks there's a lot of competition so we
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want to we want to provide the Best of
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Both Worlds to our customers anything
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that a bigger Bank offers we're going to
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be able to offer but we have the added
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benefit of being there in accessible
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incredibly accessible David and I go on
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calls and talk to customers all the time
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we think it's really important for our
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executive management team for every
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level of our employee base to be
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accessible to to our customer
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customers so as a Community Bank the
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bank is has a very Hands-On approach a
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number of areas why is that important to
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you and the growth of the bank first and
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foremost because we're really invested
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in our community and we want to be
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impactful in our community and be there
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we this is I I'm one example I I as I
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mentioned I'm from this Market we have a
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very seasoned team they live in this
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market they're a part of this Market
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they know their our customers are their
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neighbors that's the Community Bank
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touch and it's in incredibly important
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to be able to to
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really live what you say and to really
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do what we say we're doing and if we say
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we're accessible and we care and if you
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need to talk to us we're going to be
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there we have to be there and knowing
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our customers is an important part of
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that for a lot of reasons security and
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others but that word of mouth has has
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really helped us get where we are from
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the beginning just being having a huge
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presence in every Market that we serve
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and standing behind what we say we do
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what we say we're going to do so I I
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that's the way I look at
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that and so many banks offer the same
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products and services so in your mind
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what makes FBC Bank stand out from the
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competition I think it's our Innovation
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for the size bank that we are I mean
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we're we are committed to being having a
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culture of compliance absolutely and
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foremost and there's a lot of
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regulations that you need to follow and
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we're very very committed to that but
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that doesn't mean that you can't be
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Innovative and have this entrepreneurial
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Spirit think about the best ways to do
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things and we're for a bank of our size
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2.4 billion I mean there are huge Banks
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and there are other banks in our Market
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that aren't really investing in the
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technology the level that we are so it's
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that that understanding that to really
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serve all the customers that we want to
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serve in this market we need that
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personalized touch that a Community Bank
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can offer and that every employee is
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completely committed to as well as the
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technology component of it and so the
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ability to combine both of that and be
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in touch with our Comm our customers to
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understand what they really need uh I
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think it's that combination that sets us
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apart well I want to thank you for your
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time my relationship with the bank
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started with Columbo Bank I'm a huge fan
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of Caesar macei who's been with me about
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15 years and he is really a testament to
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uh uh the some of the things that you
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were talking about so no question about
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it absolutely thank you for your time
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and uh keep us surprised as you move
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forward with your assets growing and any
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new technologies you want to share with
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us I'd love to thank you so
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much
