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photo, DePaolo
Unlike the growth markets of the Southeast, New York City -- with its pricey real estate and a heaping abundance of banks -- is hardly viewed as a start-up hotbed.
But $42.5 million-asset Signature Bank, the city's first state- chartered start-up bank of 2001, says it is well situated in location and in other ways. The 160-employee unit of Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest bank, just opened this week and aims to take business away from many of the larger metropolitan players by providing personal and business banking and brokerage services.
"What's that old physics thing? Nature abhors a vacuum? We think there's a vacuum," said Signature vice chairman John Tamberlane, a 20- year veteran of Republic National Bank. "And if we're right and there is a vacuum, others are going to jump into it as well."
While many start-ups are constrained by capital shortages, Signature, which will target small-business owners with investable assets of at least $250,000, is fortified by a parent with assets of $55 billion. Bank Hapoalim has...