
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994                   TAG: 9409160037
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By CLAUDINE WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PROPOSED BANK CLEARS 3 HURDLES

VALLEY BANK'S PARENT has received preliminary approval to charter the bank, open a branch and have its deposits insured. It hopes to open early next year.

Roanoke's proposed Valley Bank has moved a little bit closer to opening, taking three big regulatory steps.

Organizers of Valley Financial Corp., the bank's parent, have received preliminary approval from the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to charter the bank and to open a branch in Roanoke County. Also, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has agreed to insure deposits.

"These are major steps in approval for the bank,'' Guy Byrd Jr., its president and chief executive officer, said Thursday.

Getting the approvals took about five months. The bank's 14 organizers began formal proceedings when they traveled to Atlanta in early March and met with officials in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a formal pre-filing meeting.

They also sought approval to operate a branch on Starkey Road near Tanglewood Mall.

Normally, a new bank would not start with two locations, Byrd said. Charters are treated separately from branches. "It is very common to get approval for the charter and have to wait for a branch," he said.

Valley Financial is leasing office space on Church Avenue in downtown Roanoke. The former headquarters of the closed First Federal Savings and Loan Bank would be the site of the proposed bank's main offices.

"There is a very nice building on that corner," Byrd said. "Since it was a financial institution before, it has some of the features a bank has to have, such as a vault.''

Roanoke-area underwriting firms said they have passed the halfway mark in an effort to sell stock for Valley Bank's initial capital.

For now, the money is being held in escrow because federal law requires a minimum of $5 million to charter a bank. The organizers hope to raise $3 million more than that, said William Nash, Roanoke branch manager at Scott & Stringfellow Inc., a stock brokerage and one of the five underwriting firms selling the bank's stock.

Organizers hope to open the bank early next year.

by CNB