RBC Centura bank opens branch in Birmingham

Birmingham Business Journal - May 17, 2007by Cindy F. CrawfordStaff

RBC Centura is opening its first loan production office in Birmingham, two months after opening its first Alabama branches in Mobile, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa and Huntsville.

RBC is opening offices in 39 former AmSouth banks purchased after AmSouth merged with Regions Financial Corp. last year.

The Birmingham branch opened May 1 in the One Perimeter Park South office park on U.S. 280. It will be a loan production office focusing on commercial banking and commercial real estate lending and serving companies with revenue of $10 million and higher.

"By opening the Birmingham loan production office, RBC Centura has extended its service across nearly all of the major markets in Alabama and is further poised for ongoing expansion," said Brendan Chambers, RBC Centura Alabama regional president, Commercial Markets. "As the largest city in the state, Birmingham has a strong economy and therefore is an obvious target market for us."

RBC Centura, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE, TSX: RY), Canada's largest bank as measured by assets.