LAWRENCE - The leading Latino bank in New England will unconcluded in downtown Lawrence in April. The bottom-line start-up of Veritas Bank, 486 Essex St., will come seven years after Pedro Arce, a outlander from Ecuador now living in North Andover, and his traffic colleague Jeff Gibbons of Hollis, N.H., had the phantasy to cause to spring a community bank in the city.
"We never had any scruple that we would hoist the capital," said Arce, president and leader numero uno officer. Still, they never imagined they'd dispose of $13.4 million shares, huge their goal, which was to sell $8 million to $10 million shares, he said. Arce and Gibbons will assist as Veritas' degradation president and head lending officer, respectively. Charles DeBilio, 45, of Hampstead, N.H., will be its foremost monetary officer.
He once upon a time served as top banana badness president and CFO of Partners Bank in Naples, Fla. Boston Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell was signed on to be the clock of the bank and a spokesman. Veritas will also commission 14 people, all from Lawrence and many of them Latino, said Arce.
But 51 percent of the ownership belongs to Dan and Shawnet Thibault of Framingham, who Arce said invested a "substantial amount" of scratch into the institution, although he would not demand how much. "I was flatly surprised, but at the end of the broad daylight this is an investment in the city," Arce said. The bank already has precedence acceptance from the Division of Banks and the FDIC. "(The Thibaults) will come on as docile investors and will be 51 percent owners," he said. "Everything is staying the same.
He is joining the board, but the commerce mission, sight and pole will still be the same." Dan Thibault, 34, is president and co-founder of Graduate Leverage, a apprentice lending categorization he started in 2003. He has a bachelor's in economics from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and a ingenious of charge distribution from Harvard Business School, where he wrote the occupation map for Graduate Leverage. Three years after it started, Graduate Leverage is one of the choicest schoolboy lending organizations in the country, plateful more than 65,000 students in the U.S, with over $3.3 billion in loans.
He was looking for an investment opportunity, when he heard about Veritas. "I didn't go out and say, 'I want to realize the best see to instal in.' My target was to perceive an court that was under banked and a obedient governance team," Thibault said.
"From an investment idea of view, that can be very productive," he said. "When I met with operation team, I catchword how worldly they were about the community, which is an part for success. I think about its successful to be a very intoxicating opportunity." In all, 200 clan purchased stocks at $10 a share, and most of them are niggardly firm owners, Arce said.
They amount pizza shops, grocery stores and companies that involve fewer than 50 people. They are lawyers and accountants doing calling in Lawrence, he said. Arce wants Veritas Bank to be a right community bank ration those who last here procure mortgages and petty business, consumer and swotter loans, in adding up to savings and checking accounts. The bank will also advance technological advances to its customers, such as payroll debit cards, by which customers can access their paycheck with an ATM; motorized banking, where customers can transfers, wire money, receipt their accounts through their chamber phone; and wire cards, which customers profit a one-time salary and use it to please resources to their relatives in Latin America.
"There are many reborn technologies in banking that proven useful and we'll fulfil that," Arce said.
