In a city once known as Florida’s banking capital, TIAA Bank is the only large banking institution still headquartered in Jacksonville.
TIAA Bank is a national institution that does business with customers across the country, and it has an obviously large presence in Jacksonville.
The TIAA name sits atop Jacksonville’s football stadium and a Downtown office tower.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data on deposit market share for banks in the Jacksonville metropolitan area show TIAA as a dominant bank with about 30% of the market, but that’s somewhat misleading because online deposits from all over the country are credited to its main branch in Jacksonville.
TIAA does business differently than traditional banks, but Scott Verlander, senior vice president and head of retail and affiliate banking, said it remains committed to serving customers in the Jacksonville community.
“While TIAA Bank is largely an online bank – in fact, we were a pioneer in online banking – we have brick and mortar branches across the Jacksonville area, with very close and long-standing relationships with our clients here,” Verlander said by email.
“Jacksonville remains a very important market for TIAA Bank. This is our headquarters city, and our roots go back here to the early 1960s,” Verlander said.
“The majority of bank employees are based here, and we serve many individual and commercial clients in the Northeast Florida region.”
TIAA was formed as the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association by the Carnegie Foundation in 1918 to provide a retirement system for teachers.
It continues to operate as a not-for-profit company focusing on financial services for people in the academic, research, medical, cultural and government fields.
Its banking subsidiary was headquartered in St. Louis but after it acquired Jacksonville-based EverBank in 2017, it moved the headquarters to EverBank’s Jacksonville offices.
EverBank employed 1,624 people in Jacksonville when it agreed to the merger. TIAA Bank employs 1,431 people in Jacksonville and 2,521 overall.
EverBank had a naming rights deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars for the football stadium and after the merger, the stadium name was changed to TIAA Bank Field.
While its name also is part of the Downtown skyline atop the 30-story TIAA Bank Center at 301 W. Bay St., the bank’s headquarters is at 501 Riverside Ave. along the St. Johns River west of Downtown.
With most of its business done online, TIAA Bank only has 14 branches, including six in Jacksonville and single branches in six other Florida cities.
Its other two branches are in St. Louis and Islandia, New York.
With $42.9 billion in assets as of June 30, TIAA Bank was the 53rd largest U.S. banking institution and it remains financially strong.
However, the bank recorded a net loss of $449 million in the first half of this year, according to FDIC data.
“Similar to banks across the country, our first half 2020 financial performance was impacted by the pandemic,” Verlander said.
“We’ve seen pressure on net interest margin given the significant drops in rates and its immediate impact to assets compared to the slower repricing of liability costs,” he said.
“In addition, we’ve continued to build our allowance for potential credit losses we expect due to the impact of COVID-19.”
Specifically, TIAA Bank’s first half loss resulted from a $515 million noncash charge related to goodwill on its balance sheet, Verlander said.
The bank took special steps to respond to needs of Jacksonville-area customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Verlander said.
“Our close ties to the Jacksonville community enabled us to respond quickly to the COVID-19 crisis and the economic fallout it caused, prompting us to set up a new Small Business Administration-approved lending facility and originate Paycheck Protection Program loans to scores of First Coast small businesses and other organizations earlier this year,” he said.
“Prior to the pandemic, we didn’t have this capability but we were able to react quickly to meet the urgent needs of clients not only here in Northeast Florida but also across the country.”
Jacksonville once was headquarters to some of Florida’s largest banks, including Barnett Banks Inc., Florida National Banks of Florida Inc. and Atlantic Bancorporation.
Through several mergers, Barnett became part of Bank of America, while Florida National and Atlantic became part of Wells Fargo.
