Bankable: A tax-friendly landscape adds to an already attractive environment for the region’s financial sector The Tampa Bay banking and financial services sector has had an eventful and mostly positive couple of years, with area banks accruing over $6 billion in additional assets, demonstrating impressive returns on those assets, and welcoming some major national players into the local market. The Tampa Bay market also saw a fair bit of internal mergers and acquisitions, as credit unions continue to gobble up community banks to increase their market share, and the consolidation of regional banks into ever fewer massive institutions sharing a growing supply of wealth. Finally, the Tampa Bay area, like much of Florida, has benefited from an influx of financial firms and wealthy residents, including a few of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans, as they flee more expensive states like New York and California in favor of Florida’s 0% state income tax. The region struggled, however, with persistent issues related to mortgage application fraud and continued fears of a market downturn precipitated by the China-U.S. trade war. The spread of the COVID-19 virus is also forcing banking leaders to go into crisis mode. An extended period of lower 96 | Invest: Tampa Bay 2020 | BANKING & FINANCE
interest rates could also hamper profits. The longterm outlook, though, remains optimistic. “(As long as) the spirit of Tampa Bay continues to rise, the market will remain prosperous. It has been a great market for quite some time, and outside of a global economic issue, Tampa Bay is going to continue to do well. I believe that even if the global economy slows down, Tampa Bay is somewhat insulated because it is a place that people want to be, for both a younger and older demographic. There is almost nowhere else in Florida that is as cost-effective, beautiful and offers as many cultural and economic opportunities as Tampa Bay,” said Allen Brinkman, regional president of Seacoast Bank, in an interview with Invest:. Performance Tampa Bay’s banking and finance sector delivered positive metrics in a number of key areas in the last year, including increased bank assets (and returns on those assets), the continually growing presence of large institutions in the area, and the presence of several high-net-worth individuals living and working in the area. ( )
