Backers of a proposed new bank here, called RiverBank, have applied to the Washington state Department of Financial Institutions for a commercial bank charter.


Longtime Spokane banking executive Duane Brandenburg, who is heading the effort to form the bank, says organizers also have set up a board of directors, hired a chief financial officer, and begun preparing for a private-placement offering of stock aimed at raising $10 million to $15 million.


Although a Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) spokeswoman says the application review process can take as long as six months, Brandenburg says the RiverBank formation team hopes to have the bank open as early as late April.


He says the banks board will include former DFI director John Bley, attorney William D. Symmes, Dr. Robert Brewster, developer Bill Lawson, commercial real estate broker Steve Schmautz, and landscape-company CEO Steve Smart.


Other board members, he says, include Garco Construction Inc. President James T. Tim Welsh, real estate broker Shelley McDowell, and Sharon and Casey Colley, who are the widow and son, respectively, of the late AmericanWest Bank President and CEO Wes Colley.


Brandenburg and fellow bank organizers Dean Bellamy and Steve Utt also will serve on the board.


Dave Schulz, who previously had been chief financial officer at another bank, has been named RiverBanks CFO.


The formation team is in the process of setting up a holding company, called RiverBank Holding Co., through which the investors will own shares in the bank, he says.


RiverBank in Formation Inc., the name of the company created to establish the bank, has set up temporary offices at 202 E. Spokane Falls Blvd.


RiverBank expects to cater mostly to small-business and commercial clients in the Spokane area. Its service would include courier vehicles, treated and insured as mobile branches, that would go to customers locations to collect deposits.