Simi Valley Bank, With a New Name, Plans to Add Fillmore Branch

Jumping in where a big player in the banking industry has decided to pull out, Simi Valley Bank officials announced Wednesday that the bank will expand under a new name by opening a full-service branch in Fillmore.

The Simi Valley bankers said they chose the new name First Western Bank to reflect the expansion into an empty Fillmore bank building, an expansion they decided to launch after Bank of America announced plans to close its Fillmore branch in July.

“We have no specific place located” for other new branches, said Simi Valley Bank President and CEO Tony Palmer. “But we’re changing our name so we can go into other locations.”

With $105 million in assets and 20,000 accounts at four branches--three in Simi and one in Moorpark--Simi Valley Bank is considering expanding into such cities as Chatsworth, Northridge and Valencia, Palmer said. But it has not ruled out opening other branches in Ventura County, he said.

The shareholders of Simi Valley Bank are to vote on the suggested name change during the next two weeks by mail.

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Simi Valley Bank plans to open its new Fillmore branch June 1 by leasing the old Wells Fargo branch--which has lived past lives as a branch for First Interstate Bank, the Bank of A. Levy, an investment-banking firm and the Ramona Savings and Loan.

Fillmore Mayor Roger Campbell helped broker the Sespe Street building’s latest incarnation.

“I’m very excited about this,” Campbell said Wednesday. “They are a very personable bank. From all appearances, they have been a very commercially oriented bank, so while they’ve got the people services the general public in Fillmore will appreciate, they’ll cater to the business community, too.”

When Bank of America announced last month it would close its Fillmore branch--leaving only a branch of the Santa Paula-based Citizens State Bank and a tiny banking office of Wells Fargo in a grocery store--Campbell went a-courting.

He contacted Simi Valley Bank, the Santa Barbara Bank and Trust and other smaller institutions that have been scouring the market for opportunities since the recent feeding frenzy of bank mergers and downsizing.

Campbell says he introduced Simi Valley Bank’s officers about three weeks ago to the private investors who own the old Wells Fargo branch on Sespe Street, and the deal was struck soon thereafter.

News of the bank’s expansion into Fillmore was welcomed by former Bank of America customers--even though some have already shifted their accounts to other institutions to beat BofA’s planned July closure.

“It looks like they’re going to need another all-round bank here,” said Winfred League, owner of Win’s restaurant, who moved his BofA accounts from the Fillmore branch to the bank’s Santa Paula branch. “I think it would be an asset to the city.”

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The new bank might also bring some stability to Fillmore’s turbulent banking market, some said.

The Fillmore Unified School District saw its Bank of A. Levy accounts swallowed by First Interstate Bank, then absorbed by Wells Fargo Bank. Then the district was left with a choice to move to another branch for full-service banking or quit, said business manager Barbara Spieler.

The district recently decided to switch its cash accounts to Citizens State Bank because “it was the school district’s feeling we really didn’t want to bank at a grocery store,” Spieler said.

“I think the town needs more than one or two choices,” she said. “It may work very well for a lot of people with the Wells Fargo branch at the market. But I think the businesses prefer not to, because you’re not going to want to count a large amount of currency there.”

Merchants also prefer to hand off their day’s receipts to a human being, and not a night-drop box where the deposit could be missed, Campbell said.

Fillmore is glad to have a new bank, he said: “The amount of money that’s left town in deposits in recent years is staggering. I think it affects the commercial viability of a town when you don’t have banks readily available for industries or businesses.”