BANKING / FINANCE : Wall Street Financial Centers’ Plan to Sell Franchises Receives Approval

Wall Street Financial Centers Inc. in Irvine won approval Tuesday from the state to start selling an array of products and services to small community banks and their customers.

The state Department of Corporations gave the company the green light to start marketing a franchising concept to banks throughout the state, said Kenneth Ziskin, a banking lawyer who was hired three months ago as president to launch a new business plan.

Ziskin’s idea is to sell franchises in Wall Street Financial Centers in small banks that cannot afford to offer their customers all the products that larger banks could offer. The centers will offer bank customers such products as automobile leasing, accounts receivable financing, government-backed home improvement loans, annuities, life insurance and securities trading.

“This is for small banks that don’t have the personnel or the volume business to be experts at doing everything,” Ziskin said. “Our primary target is a bank with less than $100 million in assets, but some banks with up to $250 million in assets are interested.”

The company, bolstered by the acquisition last week of Bankers Financial Network Inc. in Dana Point, also will offer products for small banks. Those products include workers compensation insurance, office equipment and supplies, construction loan oversight and a deferred compensation program for senior executives.

Bankers Financial, in operation for five years, already provides products to about 45 banks throughout the state. It has five offices throughout the state and will operate as an independent subsidiary of Wall Street Financial’s parent firm, Wall Street Financial Corp. in Honolulu.