Inland Empire, Calif. (Jan. 30, 2013) — Representatives from Pacific Mercantile Bank’s Inland Empire office in Ontario recently met with Inland Empire Economic Partnership (IEEP) to commemorate its membership with a check presentation. Pacific Mercantile Bank joins IEEP to help local leaders spur regional economic activity and represent the interests of smaller community banks in the region.

On January 22, 2013, IEEP’s executive director Paul Granillo accepted a $5,000 check from Pacific Mercantile Bank’s inland regional manager Gene Valdez and CRA officer Kimberly Gavin. As a member of IEEP, Pacific Mercantile Bank will try to broaden awareness about business lending and initiate ideas that will help more local companies expand.

“Regional business and community banks play a significant role in supporting business growth and job creation,” said Valdez. “We are invested in seeing the Inland Empire grow and hope that our membership with IEEP will allow us to positively influence economic development issues affecting the region.”

IEEP is an advocacy group of government, education and business members working to develop human, political and financial capital to support and enhance the economic vitality and quality of life in the Inland Empire.

“Community banks help keep local dollars local, which will be key to bettering the economy,” said Granillo. “We welcome Pacific Mercantile Bank and the new voice they will bring to our group.  We hope many other regional banks will follow their lead.”

ABOUT PACIFIC MERCANTILE BANKCORP
Pacific Mercantile Bancorp is the parent holding company of Pacific Mercantile Bank, which opened for business March 1, 1999. The Bank, which is an FDIC insured, California state-chartered bank and a member of the Federal Reserve System, provides a wide range of commercial banking services to businesses, business professionals and individual clients through its combination of traditional banking financial centers and comprehensive, sophisticated electronic banking services. The Bank operates a total of seven financial centers in Southern California.. The four Orange County financial centers are located, respectively, in the cities of Newport Beach, Costa Mesa (which is visible from the 405 and 73 Freeways), La Habra and San Juan Capistrano (which is our South County financial center that is visible from the Interstate 5 Freeway). Our financial center in Los Angeles County is located in the city of Beverly Hills. Our San Diego financial center is located in La Jolla and our Inland Empire financial center is located in the city of Ontario (visible from the Interstate 10 Freeway). In addition to the Bank’s physical locations, it offers comprehensive banking services over its Internet Bank, which is accessible 24/7 worldwide at www.pmbank.com<http://www.pmbank.com> .