A group in Connecticut wants to form an uninsured bank that would offer low-risk deposit accounts to institutional investors.
TNB Corp. in Norwalk, which filed for a state bank charter, said in its application that it plans to invest in "safe assets" such as securities. TNB, which would not have branches or retail deposits, said its business plan will be "unique" and have a "proprietary design."
As a result, TNB would not have deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. All of the company's startup capital — roughly $6 million — would be provided by the bank's organizers.
TNB also said in its application that it will use equity or long-term subordinated debt as a substitute risk buffer. The planned bank also asked regulators to exempt it from Connecticut's standard assessment formula, since that formula is based on an institution's total assets.
"This formula would inadvertently cause TNB to pay a disproportionate amount of the annual expenses of the Department," TNB said.
Gene Park, TNB's proposed president and one of its principal organizers, declined to comment.
Jamie McAndres, TNB's proposed chairman and CEO, is a former head of the research and statistics group at the New York Fed, where he worked from to 2010 to 2016. McAndrews served on the New York Fed's Comprehensive Liquidity and Analysis Review.
Park is the founder and managing member of Compound Capital Management, a private investment company. Park also worked for AIG, where he "was instrumental in identifying the risks and closing down of AIG Financial Products Corp.'s subprime mortgage business two years prior to the financial crisis of 2008," TNB's filing said.
TNB's board would also include Ernie Patrikis, a banking lawyer at White & Case and a former general counsel at the New York Fed and AIG; and Gary Gorton, a finance professor at the Yale University School of Management.
