MidFirst ramps up NoCo lending operations

FORT COLLINS — There’s a new player on the Fort Collins banking scene that’s starting small, with ambitions to expand throughout the Northern Colorado market.

MidFirst Bank opened its first operations in the region last month with a two-person loan shop doing business out of a coworking space on Linden Street in Old Town. 

“The bank is really making a push to be here — we want to be here,” MidFirst first vice president Matthew Hoppal told Bizwest. “We like the clientele, like the market and we’re excited about the growth potential.”

The Fort Collins operation is mostly focused on commercial real estate and business loans and doesn’t have the capacity to take deposits or perform other functions available at a traditional branch. 

“At this point right now, it’s more of a loan-production office,” Hoppal said, but the plan is to eventually open a retail banking establishment in the region.

“We’re going to continue to grow in the market,” MidFirst first vice president Jordan Butts said. “Whether that’s opening multiple branches, we’ll just have to see.”

Oklahoma-based MidFirst, the nation’s largest privately owned bank with more than $28 billion in assets, is a relative newcomer to the scene, first opening a Boulder branch in 2018. 

Susan Moratelli, a banking industry veteran who has held positions in Boulder for the better part of two decades, was recently hired late last year as the region’s new vice president of commercial lending.

“The bank has been bullish on Northern Colorado for the last seven or eight years,” Butts said, citing the presence of higher-education institutions and the mix of industries from advanced manufacturing to energy to technology startups.

“It’s diversified enough” for a new entrant in the banking industry, he said.

While MidFirst might be headquartered a state away, Hoppal said his office has localized loan approval authority.

“The folks who are here are the ones making the decisions,” he said.

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