Ash Patel Featured In CardRates.Com Article
Commercial Bank of California is Committed to the Success of its Small Business Customers
An excerpt from cardrates.com
Written by: Andrew Allen
Edited by: Lillian Guevara-Castro
Updated: December 6, 2023
In a Nutshell: Commercial Bank of California (CBC) is the third largest bank headquartered in Orange County, California. The bank provides an array of solutions to small businesses. Its payment processing division services various businesses, including publicly traded companies. Employees of CBC complete thousands of hours of community service each year, and the bank is committed to increasing financial literacy in the communities it serves.
Though banks may share similar characteristics, there are also many differences among them. Retail banks offer a range of products and services to meet the needs of the general public. Investment banks primarily serve large corporations, assisting them with more complex banking needs such as merger and acquisition transactions. Commercial banks focus on providing small businesses with banking services.
Commercial Bank of California (CBC), as its name suggests, is a commercial bank. It has $2.5 billion in assets and operates six regional offices in Southern California. We checked in with Ash Patel, CBC’s Chairman, President, and CEO, to learn more about the bank and its focus on small businesses.
Patel said CBC, which has existed for 20 years, is the third largest bank headquartered in Orange County. Commercial Bank of California’s Board of Directors own the bank.
As a commercial bank, CBC does not offer consumer products. Patel said the bank primarily services small businesses and caters to minority-owned businesses.
“The differentiator between Commercial Bank of California and a bank like Bank of America is that we’re not a consumer-oriented, large money center,” Patel said. “We’re minority-owned, and we focus on the community. Our aim is serving small businesses.”
Patel said CBC’s regional managers cater to the small to medium-sized businesses within the bank’s geographic territory.
In addition to offering banking services, CBC also manages a payment processing business that includes credit card and ACH processing.
“Doing both banking as well as payment processing is a differentiator,” Patel said. “It’s a unique value proposition, at the size we are, to be able to offer processing services and banking solutions.”