ARLINGTON, VA-GlobeSt.com has learned exclusively that locally based Promontory Interfinancial Network is taking its service offerings to another level with the creation of a shared platform for targeting bank assets for sale. Called Bank Assetpoint, the online platform is actually a two-tiered strategy offering users, whether they be banks, brokers other lenders or advisers, a way to search for assets and touch base with other participants in the space.

Currently serving some 3,000 banks nationwide, Promontory based the offering on client focus groups and reflects the need for banks to keep their balance sheets clean. “Typically the company works on the liability side of the balance sheet,” explains senior managing director Rich Walter. “In the focus groups our clients told us they want to know what we could do for them on the asset side of the equation.” The firm is currently in the process of loading listings and participants to the platform, which launches today.

Clients, actually anyone, can post their assets on the site, including underwater properties, distressed loans, even properties that are performing but no longer fit the portfolio. “Since the crash, a lot of these banks picked up assets they didn't want,” recalls Walter, who ran Faris Lee Investments before joining Promontory and now runs the new online platform. And with so many failures in recent years, the market has become increasingly fragmented.