ARLINGTON, VA-GlobeSt.com has learned exclusively that locally based Promontory Interfinancial Network is taking its service offerings to another level with the creation of a shared platform for targeting bank assets for sale. Called Bank Assetpoint, the online platform is actually a two-tiered strategy offering users, whether they be banks, brokers other lenders or advisers, a way to search for assets and touch base with other participants in the space.

Currently serving some 3,000 banks nationwide, Promontory based the offering on client focus groups and reflects the need for banks to keep their balance sheets clean. “Typically the company works on the liability side of the balance sheet,” explains senior managing director Rich Walter. “In the focus groups our clients told us they want to know what we could do for them on the asset side of the equation.” The firm is currently in the process of loading listings and participants to the platform, which launches today.

Clients, actually anyone, can post their assets on the site, including underwater properties, distressed loans, even properties that are performing but no longer fit the portfolio. “Since the crash, a lot of these banks picked up assets they didn't want,” recalls Walter, who ran Faris Lee Investments before joining Promontory and now runs the new online platform. And with so many failures in recent years, the market has become increasingly fragmented.

He says Bank Assetpoint is taking a stab at circumventing that fragmentation. Through the marketplace, industry players can locate assets. Through the community offering, they can meet other interested parties, including other brokers and advisers as well as banks and other lenders. “We were very careful that we didn't disintermediate any of the players,” he says. What the site won't do is serve as a transaction platform. That Walter is clear about, is being left to the participants to complete offline. The service is geared simply to put people and properties together.

When asked what the upside would be for Promontory, Walter says it's down the road and minimal. There are no charges on assets distressed prior to 2009 and the offering's “minimal” charges are being waived for the year on assets distressed after 2009. The new offering is endorsed by the American Bankers Association through its subsidiary, the Corporation for American Banking, and the Independent Community Bankers of America has also agreed to promote Bank Assetpoint among its members.