Monday, April 8, 2013

Paragon Bank to launch mobile platform

Paragon Bank, a Raleigh-based bank with a niche focus on lending to businesses and their executives, could introduce a mobile-banking platform by 2014, the president of the Raleigh-based bank's Charlotte division said Monday.

"The ability to make a deposit via phone, we're absolutely looking at that," Phillip Jurney said. "I would say this time next year we will definitely have it."

The move illustrates that small banks - Paragon is the 23rd-largest bank, by deposits, in North Carolina - are still trying to catch up with much bigger banks that already offer customers mobile technology, such as mobile check depositing. The bank had $740.7 million in deposits as of June 30, according to the latest Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.

Other changes are in store for the 14-year-old bank, whose products include commercial real estate loans. As of now, it has only two locations, one in Charlotte at Piedmont Town Center in SouthPark, the other in Raleigh. But the bank will likely have two branches in Charlotte and two in Raleigh by 2014 or 2015, Jurney said.

Also, the bank this year changed its name from Paragon Commercial Bank, dropping the word "commercial" in an attempt to make potential customers think of the bank as more than a commercial lender.

The bank previously announced that it plans to relocate its Charlotte operation to a new SouthPark location, a roughly 16,000-square-foot, two-story building at 6337 Morrison Blvd. Jurney said the bank will move into the building in September.

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