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Rising real estate values in Miami-Dade County translate to rising employment--not only in the construction industry, but also in the financial services sector. Miami-based TotalBank, for example, which has 13 offices and 250 employees spread around the county, plans to hire up to six additional loan officers in 2004--largely to keep up with demand for mortgage loans to buy or refinance housing.

"We still think that reconstruction and rebuilding, and new building of housing developments, is going to be strong," says Bill Heffernan, president and chief executive of Miami-based TotalBank. He also expects strong local demand in 2004 for smaller office/showroom properties and apartment buildings in the Miami area. "We feel pretty good about that market."

Local lending has been supported by solid deposit growth at the local branch offices of financial institutions. Deposits at the Miami-Dade offices of banks and savings associations insured by the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.) increased to $56.3 billion last June 30, up 9.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the FDIC. Bank of America was the leader in Miami-Dade with about $9.3 billion in deposits (or 16.5 percent market share), followed by Wachovia (with 12.8 percent market share), Citibank (7.7 percent), SunTrust (6.9 percent) and Ocean Bank (6.5 percent).

Deposits also rose at foreign bank agencies in Florida, which are mostly clustered in the Miami area. Foreign bank agency deposits totaled $14.9 billion Sept. 30, 2003, compared with $13.3 billion a year earlier, according to the Florida Division of Banking. As of mid-2003, the dominant player among state-licensed foreign bank agencies was United Kingdom-based Barclays Bank, with $8.4 billion of deposits (or 56 percent market share), followed by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (with 6.1 percent market share), Royal Bank of Canada (5.6 percent) and ABN-AMRO Bank N.V. (5 percent).

# posted by Medical Information : 4:04 AM