Inland Consolidates Three Banks Holding $1.1B

OAK BROOK, IL-Inland Bancorp Inc., based here, is merging and consolidating three of its subsidiary banks. AmeriMark Bank, Cambridge Bank, and Inland Bank and Trust are will now all be called Inland Bank and Trust, says Howard Jaffe, president and CEO of Inland Bancorp, which is an affiliate of the Inland Real Estate Group of Cos. Inc. The assets of the banks in the merger total more than $1.1 billion.

“We have a number of subsidiaries that are part of our company, of which three of them were independent banks,” Jaffe says. “We are merging those three subsidiary banks into one.” The three banks had a total of nine locations, in Countryside, IL; Hawthorn Woods, IL; Hillside, IL; Lake Zurich, IL; Lombard, IL; Morton Grove, IL; and Villa Park, IL. There were two locations in Glen Ellyn, IL, Jaffe says. “It allows us to better serve our customers,” he says. “Obviously, after the merger, our clients can do their banking at any of the nine locations that we have.”

Inland also plans to open additional Inland Bank and Trust locations within the next six months. Inland is currently looking at a location but cannot disclose it until an application has been filed with the regulatory commission, he says. The merger will also allow Inland to “gain some operating efficiencies,” Jaffe says. “It is much easier to market one name than three names and it puts us all on a single computer system; all of which is beneficial to our clients,” he says.