Scott Waite is the founding CEO of Public Bank East Bay, which will invest local funds for affordable housing, small businesses and building renovations.
Veteran credit union executive Scott Waite has been named the first CEO of Public Bank East Bay in Oakland, Calif., which is expected to open in 2024 or early 2025.
PBEB is a wholesale financial institution that will enable cities and counties throughout the East Bay to invest their funds (money collected as taxes, fines and fees) through partnerships with credit unions, community banks and CDFIs to finance affordable housing developments, small businesses including marginalized entrepreneurs, and the renovation of existing buildings. The public bank also will allow local cities and counties to refinance their municipal debt locally. PBEB will not accept retail deposits from consumers and will not compete with local financial institutions.
Alameda County and the cities of Richmond, Oakland and Berkeley have contributed financially to the bank’s planning, including laying the groundwork for the business plan.
The bank’s organizers, “Friends of PBEB,” announced in September that they have raised $1.1 million – or half of the projected budget to fund the startup efforts – from grant-funded donations of local foundations.
“With my long career in CEO and CFO roles in credit unions, I know what it takes to successfully operate a regulated financial institution that has the interests of the community at the center of its mission,” Waite said in a prepared statement. “I look forward to engaging with our jurisdictional partners and our broader set of stakeholders in advancing the development of a sound business plan that will meet regulatory requirements and to partnering with the board chairs, board slate and the Friends (of PBEB) to build this momentum. It is thrilling to be part of the public bank initiatives that is in line to be the first public bank in the United States in over 100 years.”
Waite is tasked with completing the bank’s business plan that will be used to secure a California state charter.
For more than 20 years, Waite worked at the $9.5 billion Patelco Credit Union in Dublin, Calif., as its CFO, and for the last 15 of those years he served in a dual capacity as CEO of the credit union’s subsidiary corporation, building its member-related investments and insurance products and services.
He also has been credited with saving and revitalizing the $232 million Central State Credit Union in Stockton, Calif., where he removed a four-year federal and state regulatory oversight in 10 months by rebuilding the credit union’s lending program with 28% growth and increased the institution’s net worth from 7.8% to 9%, according to PBEB’s prepared statement.
Waite’s LinkedIn profile page also showed he served as interim CFO for the $1.1 billion Silver State Schools Credit Union in Las Vegas, Nev., for six months and ran a consulting firm for six years.
