How to start a bank
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What is the purpose of starting a bank?
The two of us are standing in one of the bank's back hallways, a.k.a. secret tunnels. Speaking of that, where is the money?
Yeah, I cannot tell you where the money is.
Oh, come on. Erica, Ilaria told me they do have a vault. It's all ready to go, but it is in a secret location for security reasons because bank robberies do happen. Ilaria has been in banking 30 years and she has actually been through four of them. Whole other story. But she doesn't want to show me the vault. Fair enough. She just describes it. And alas, it does not have one of those big turny things on the front.
It's not the size that I think you would expect, but it's functional and it takes care of what we need. It's just a little vault. It is a little vault.
I visited Fortuna in late January when they were gearing up for their grand opening and ribbon cutting. The day before that big event, I was in Ilaria's office where she logged on to a meeting with the bank's leadership team.
Any questions about the great opening tomorrow?
They're expecting 200 people for the ribbon cutting, and they're feeling ready, though they are still putting the pieces of the bank together. That afternoon, I sat in on a meeting where Fortuna was working with an outside vendor to set up a way for people to open accounts online. And they had to make all of these small, important decisions, like would overdraft protection be an option?
Yeah, let's unclick that for now.
They're definitely going to have overdraft protection eventually, but it wasn't set up yet. Ditto debit cards. They were still waiting on Visa to get that figured out. It's a whole thing.
Hearing all of this just really drives home for me just how many tiny parts make up a bank. And like just for how every single bank in the country, at some point, someone had to figure out how to do this stuff. Like none of it is just like available out of the box.
We're truly building a bank. And, you know, not many banks start every year. Right? Like three or four businesses in the country are having this kind of conversation.
Yeah. Last year, 2024, six banks started up in total.
Those numbers used to be way higher. Before the 2008 financial crisis, there were more than 100 new banks opening in the United States every year. But for reasons we'll get into, starting a bank has gotten a lot harder. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Erika Barris.
And I'm Sally Helm. This process took Fortuna three years, $20 million, and a lot of sleepless nights. Today on the show, we get a close-up look as they go from the idea of a bank to the first deposit.
Yeah, how do you start a bank? Why would you bother? And is there an argument to be made that more people should be doing it?
Like any business, a bank starts as just a twinkle in someone's eye. And of course, that twinkle has some dollar signs attached.
I mean, why does anybody start a business, right? So obviously, there's one obvious answer, which is to make some money.
That is Lisa Berger.
I introduce myself usually as a born and bred Buckeye from Columbus, Ohio.
Someone described Lisa to me as being a rare combination, intense, and also somehow laid back. That was definitely the vibe I got. A while back, she started a title company and realized that she loved it. Lisa is an entrepreneur at heart.
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