Of about 40 banks based in Florida, only 15 of them have passed the $1 billion threshold in terms of assets held.
Sanibel Captiva Community Bank just became one of them.
The Sanibel Island-based bank, which has grown to nine branches since being established in 2003 with $27 million in assets, has doubled in size over the past five years, CEO Kyle DeCicco said.
Of more than 4,500 community banks in the United States, only about 12% have reached the $1 billion to $5 billion mark, a milestone that places Sanibel Captiva Community Bank into a new category of regulation.
“With us just now achieving this billion-dollar threshold, on the surface, it might mean a little bit more for management of the institution in terms of compliance and regulation,” DeCicco said. “In terms of the day-to-day and how our customers see us, there’s no change. We’ll have additional compliance and additional accounting regulations that the bank has to do with our regulators to insure the highest level of compliance. That’s really all it is, in the background.”
Reaching that threshold became the byproduct of a plan to invest heavily in Southwest Florida, he said.
“As far as growing to that point, we were able to do that through sound management and practices,” DeCicco said. “Having the capital to grow. And then having the foresight to lend in this community throughout our nearly 23-year history. We’ve gone through the downturns. We got through those. We were well poised, coming out of that.”
Since the end of 2020, when COVID-19 had shut down swaths of the economy, the bank has doubled in assets, from $500 million to $1 billion.
“We’ve doubled in size in less than five years,” DeCicco said. “Growth was not the priority for us. But part of growth gives you the ability to do larger loans and have more of a meaningful impact in Lee County.
“Just think of the projects that we can help facilitate on Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach, that we couldn’t do just nine years ago. Nine years ago, we couldn’t build some of these hotels that you’re seeing being built today. We didn’t have the capacity. As the bank grows, that is one of the financial benefits. The bigger we get, the more we can lend to people in the community.”
The bank loans and keeps almost all of its money in Southwest Florida. It keeps a loan-to-deposit ratio of about 92%. The bulk of the bank’s loans, about 86%, are in home mortgages, construction and commercial loans.
After buying the Edison Theatre building in downtown Fort Myers for $2 million in May, Sanibel Captiva Community Bank now owns all of its own real estate.
The bank is nearing completion of the reconstruction of its McGregor Boulevard branch in south Fort Myers near Iona, and it is planning to break ground on a new Fort Myers Beach branch in the fall, with a projected opening date by the end of 2026.
“You have to take calculated risks,” DeCicco said. “The reason why we hit a billion dollars – a majority of those assets are loans right here in Southwest Florida. We’re very proud of that. We don’t lend in Idaho. We don’t lend in Arizona. We lend right here in Southwest Florida.”
