Ping Yin Chai
Title: President and CEO, Salem Five
Age: 55
Experience: 34 years
Ping Yin Chai has always been a numbers guy. He attended Bentley College for accounting and wound up working for Salem Five before he finished college. Ever since he was entrusted to manage the financials of the Pickering Wharf development, he’s been loyal to the bank, and the bank has returned that loyalty, recently naming him president and CEO. As Salem Five celebrates its 160th anniversary this year, Chai sat down with Banker & Tradesman to reflect on the bank’s past and discuss what the future holds for Salem Five.
Q: Looking back over the bank’s history, are there any particular points of pride that stand out to you?
A: We had a major financial crisis in 2008 and this bank did not miss a beat. There is a lot to be said for that. A lot of banks would have gone by the wayside. A lot of banks did nothing, but Salem Five continued to prosper and also continued to grow. I think that’s one of the very, very gratifying things that happened to Salem Five. It’s not by accident. It’s just the way this bank is managed and has a very strong culture of what we do and what we don’t, and it pays off.
If you think back over 160 years of the bank’s history, Salem Five is still here. The Bank of New England is gone, Shawmut, Fleet, Bank of Boston. … They’re all gone, and Salem Five is still standing strong. To take it a little bit further, this country gained its independence 239 years ago, and Salem Five has been here for 160 years. It’s really done remarkably when you look at it from that perspective.
Q: Salem Five has been building out its insurance and financial planning divisions in recent years. What kind of growth have you seen in those areas?
A: Let’s talk about Salem Five insurance. We are growing organically, and we’ve done very well, especially in the last year, and if there is any potential acquisition, we’re going to do an acquisition to complement that organic growth. We’re talking to a number of agencies right now and if we come to a meeting of minds, we could consummate some of those transactions.
At Salem Five Financial, we have been actively growing that business. We are now up to 12 investment advisors and one of the things that we really focus on is retirement planning. That’s something that not too many institutions focus on, but I think there is a need, big time. The daily transactions, the 401(k). … Plenty of people are doing that, but we think a comprehensive retirement plan is something that consumers really would benefit from.
Q: What about commercial lending? Where do you see room for growth there, and how do you reconcile that with the sheer level of competition right now for good credits?
A: I would say that C&I and commercial real estate, those are two areas that we really pride ourselves on. We also do SBA loans, though not as much, but commercial real estate loans, C&I loans are the ones that we really, really are pretty darn good at. We have bankers who’ve been in the business for 20, 30 years. I know everybody wants to get into commercial lending, but that area is competitive and full of traps. When things are going well, everything looks good, but when things are not going well, you can get hurt pretty quickly.
I think Salem Five really holds the line and we really do what’s right. We do not hesitate to say no to a customer if it really is not good for them and it’s not good for the bank. In the commercial arena, we do a lot of C&I equipment financing, a lot of cash flows, some asset-based lending, and we have some big name restaurants in our portfolio.
On the real estate side, we deal with the local developers and also the national developers, so that gives us quite a few options. … Another area is construction lending, and that’s beautiful. … We have a unit dedicated just to [single-family construction lending]. We deal directly with the developers and builders, and that’s one of Salem Five’s strengths in construction loans. We have a good sized portfolio of builders and pre-fab manufacturers out there.
It’s a challenging environment right now. Interest rates are very, very low and the margins are very skinny, so we just have to pick our spots of what we like to do and we stick it out. You never know. This environment could go on for another 10 years.
Chai’s Top Five Amazing Places To Visit:
- Yellowstone National Park, U.S.A
- The Great Wall, China
- Redang Island Resort, Malaysia
- British Columbia, Canada
- Alaska, U.S.A
