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ABA Banking Journal Podcast


Feb 12, 2020

With $1.57 billion in assets, HAB Bank isn’t big — but it’s a community bank with global reach. The New York-based institution provides correspondent banking services for 140 banks in 20 countries, primarily in South Asia and East Asia. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, sponsored by Franklin Madison, President and CEO Saleem Iqbal discusses how HAB Bank competes in this global marketplace.

Iqbal talks about HAB Bank’s 45-person correspondent banking unit, in which one-third are devoted to compliance. “We embraced every single change in regulation, and we’ll tailor our business model to the regulatory environment,” he says. As part of the bank’s due diligence, for example, HAB Bank employees visit its correspondent bank customers overseas twice a year.

Iqbal also discusses the bank’s commercial real estate lending business, which focuses on tenanted commercial properties in New York City, New Jersey and Southern California, as well as its trade finance activities and Iqbal’s involvement in ABA’s Community Bankers Council.