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The Vault

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Jan. 25, 2021

Build or Buy 2.0: The Best Way to Start a Bank Post-COVID

By Benjamin A. Barnhill, Mark L. Miller

Conditions have certainly changed since we last evaluated the choice between starting a “new” bank with a de novo charter versus purchasing an existing bank to implement the “new” bank’s business plan. When we wrote our first Build or Buy article in the fall of 2019, the economy was still riding a steady ten-year expansion and the potential for new banks looked generally positive. In addition, unlike most periods of time in the past, there were fairly evenly matched pros and cons to both routes for starting a bank.

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