Metropolitan Commercial Bank (the “Bank”), a New York City-based full-service commercial bank, announced today the further expansion of their Title and Escrow Deposit Vertical with the appointment of two veteran Title and Escrow banking professionals from Fifth Third Bank.

“Rob and Nowanna are a great fit to assist in expanding our Title and Escrow group,” said Mark R. DeFazio, President and CEO of Metropolitan Commercial Bank. “Title and Escrow and 1031 Exchange business are a natural expansion of one of the Bank’s core competencies allowing us to deepen our deposit relationships with accounting and law firms, title companies, and real estate managers, owners and investors. This new team will report to Laura Capra, Executive Vice President and Head of Retail Banking for Metropolitan Commercial Bank.”

Rob Larger joins the Bank as Senior Vice President and Head of Title and Escrow. He has two decades of banking experience, with the last four years at Fifth Third Bank focused on Treasury Management, Large Corporate Deposit Vertical for Title and Escrow as a Vice President, Senior Commercial Relationship Manager and National Product Specialist. Robert’s previous banking experience includes time well spent at Huntington National Bank, Old National Bank and Charter One Bank.

Nowanna Ward joins the Bank as First Vice President, Title and Escrow Program Manager. She has 16 years of banking experience, with the last four years focused on Treasury Management, Large Corporate Deposit Vertical for Title and Escrow as a Vice President and Program Manager. Nowanna has spent most of her banking career at Fifth Third Bank.

“Metropolitan Commercial Bank continues to identify the right teams as well as the right business lines on which to focus. Rob and Nowanna’s strong expertise in the Deposit Vertical for the Title and Escrow banking arena will complement and expand the Bank’s efforts to increase deposits. This is a key market opportunity for us. We heartily welcome this team of experienced professionals to the Metropolitan Commercial Bank family,” said Laura Capra, Executive Vice President and Head of Retail Banking for Metropolitan Commercial Bank.

About Metropolitan Commercial Bank

Metropolitan Commercial Bank (the “Bank”) is a New York City based full-service commercial bank. The Bank provides a broad range of business, commercial and personal banking products and services to small businesses, private and public middle-market and corporate enterprises and institutions, municipalities and local government entities, and affluent individuals.

Metropolitan Commercial Bank’s Global Payments Group is an established leader in providing payments services to domestic and international financial service companies, including: providing digital payments settlements; providing a gateway to payment networks; acting as a custodian of deposits; providing merchant acquiring services; acting as a global settlement agent, and as a leading national issuer of third-party debit cards. The Bank continues to grow its presence as a valued, trusted and innovative strategic partner across, payments, custodial and money services businesses worldwide.

Metropolitan Commercial Bank’s EB-5 / E-2 International Group delivers banking services and products for United States Citizen and Immigration Services EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program investors, developers, Regional Centers, government agencies, law firms and consulting companies that specialize in EB-5 and E-2.

Metropolitan Commercial Bank finished in the top ten of S&P Global Market Intelligence’s annual ranking of the best-performing community banks with assets between $3 billion and $10 billion for 2022 and among the top ten top-performing community banks in the Northeast region for 2022. The Bank is also a member of the Piper Sandler Sm-All Stars Class of 2022, we maintained six consecutive Five Star ratings from Bauer Financial since 3Q 2021 and Kroll affirmed a BBB+ (investment grade) deposit rating on January 25, 2023.

Metropolitan Commercial Bank operates banking centers and private client offices in Manhattan and Boro Park, Brooklyn in New York City and Great Neck on Long Island in New York State.

The Bank is a New York State chartered commercial bank, a member of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and an equal housing lender. The parent company of Metropolitan Commercial Bank is Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. (NYSE: MCB).

For more information, please visit the Bank’s website at MCBankNY.com.

Forward Looking Statement Disclaimer

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Examples of forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the Company’s future financial condition and capital ratios, results of operations and the Company’s outlook and business. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts. Such statements may be identified by the use of such words as “may,” “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “continue” or similar terminology. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Factors which may cause our forward-looking statements to be materially inaccurate include, but are not limited to the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and results of operation, an unexpected deterioration in our loan or securities portfolios, unexpected increases in our expenses, different than anticipated growth and our ability to manage our growth, unanticipated regulatory action or changes in regulations, unexpected changes in interest rates, inflation, an unanticipated decrease in deposits, an unanticipated loss of key personnel or existing customers, competition from other institutions resulting in unanticipated changes in our loan or deposit rates, an unexpected adverse financial, regulatory or bankruptcy event experienced by our fintech partners, unanticipated increases in FDIC costs, changes in regulations, legislation or tax or accounting rules, the current or anticipated impact of military conflict, terrorism or other geopolitical events and unanticipated adverse changes in our customers’ economic conditions or general economic conditions, as well as those discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.

Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release. We do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement.

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