nwasianweekly.com
Sept. 16, 2006

Jesse T. Tam

By James Tabafunda
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

While growing up in Hong Kong, Jesse T. Tam’s parents shared a love for the same profession. His mother worked for a Chinese bank, while his father worked in a French bank. When the time came for him to decide on a career, the choice was easy. Today, he remains proud of having been born into a banking family.

Tam, a nominee for the 2006 Asian American Entrepreneur of the Year Award, is the chairman and CEO of Regal Financial Bancorp, which is headquartered in the lobby of the IDX Tower in downtown Seattle. The bank is one of the few independent banks in an area full of larger, more familiar ones.

Tam is among the 12 founders of Regal Bank. He has also helped start two other banks: Northwest International Bank in 1998 and Asia-Europe-Americas Bank in 1995.

Regal Bank finished its first year of business with a profit, according to Tam. It offers customers “any banking activity … to help individuals and businesses achieve their goals,” he says.

Now in its fifth year, with 36 employees and $125 million in assets, Regal opened loan production offices in Las Vegas and Boise, Idaho, this past December. Tam says there is a possibility they might someday become full-scale banks.

The next goal in the bank’s long-term plans: expansion to China. Tam says a current challenge for the bank is the rapidly changing global business environment.

Despite its current success, Regal Financial Bank got off to a rough start. “One of our largest challenges,” Tam says, “came just as we were organizing.” Two weeks into raising the start-up funds necessary under federal banking laws, Tam and his co-founders joined the rest of the world community in their shock and disbelief. The date was Sept. 11, 2001.
While the economy took a nosedive, the founders stayed confident and hoped for better days ahead. They decided to move forward with their plans.

“It was a challenge to discuss investment during that time of uncertainty, but our team persevered. We raised $10 million (then another $5 million soon after) and opened the following spring (April 2002),” he says.

The experience taught the founders, and especially Tam, an important lesson about entrepreneurship: Never give up.

Another challenge of the business, he adds, is “finding more quality people to complement the talented group that has brought us to where we are today.”

Tam describes himself as “very energetic and passionate about banking and how it can help people in their businesses.”

“(I am) always out meeting people locally, nationally and internationally as part of continued development of the bank,” he says.

Shaking hands and making new acquaintances have been worth Tam’s time and effort. Unlike many of the well-known larger banks, Regal Financial Bank does business by getting to know its individual and business customers, particularly their needs and their personal goals, Tam says.

In addition to being a banker, Tam describes himself as a “longtime participant in many community organizations.” A member of the Rotary for 22 years, he will serve as a district governor for the 2008-09 term.

Tam has been president of the Washington State-China Chamber of Commerce and president of the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority.

“I also believe in education and experience,” says Tam. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing from Boise State University. After 18 months of nighttime and weekend coursework, he received his master’s degree in finance from City University in 1984.

For the last 16 years, he has been a mentor to students in the Seattle University Business School’s Albers Mentor Program. He also offers students the opportunity to gain real-life work experience through internships at the bank.

For more information about Regal Financial Bank, visit www.regal-bank.com.

James Tabafunda can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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