Portrait Bank, central Florida’s first de novo in nearly a decade, opened its doors Saturday after gaining its final necessary approval from the Florida Office of Financial Regulation three months ago.
A group led by central Florida banking veteran Erik Weiner submitted applications to the state regulator and to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. just over a year ago and secured conditional approvals in April.
Portrait raised $43 million from 256 local investors ahead of opening, significantly higher than the roughly $28 million regulators required in initial capital.
No investor put down more than $1 million in what now-CEO Weiner called a “diversified funding effort.”
“This really demonstrated how much the community was needing this, how excited they were, how much they rallied behind us,” said Weiner, who expects Portrait to “be part of the heartbeat of central Florida and make a very big impact here locally.”
After gaining its charter in June, Weiner’s team spent the summer onboarding clients. These clients – small to mid-size businesses, as well as individuals and private wealth clients – have lacked options in central Florida, where Weiner said four banks where four banks serve a majority of the market.
“There's not a lot of choices for clients, and they feel like they're put into a box,” he said.
Consolidation has cut the number of banks headquartered in central Florida from 38 in 2000 to roughly half a dozen, he said.
“There was less personalized service, less local decision making, and banks were making …a smaller impact on the community,” Weiner said of the consolidation. “The opportunity here to really make a difference for the business community and families here in central Florida was too much to pass up.”
Weiner’s a near-lifelong resident of central Florida, having moved there at 8 years old from New York. He said he and the Portrait team, including CFO Jeff Jenkins, the former Winter Park National Bank CFO who’s now held the position at four de novos in the region, understand the priorities of central Florida businesses and “how they look at the world.”
Portrait opens in a region where the population continues to grow. Orlando’s population expanded 1.3% in 2025, according to the Orlando Economic Partnership, citing census bureau data. That’s above Florida’s growth rate of 0.8%, and ranks sixth highest among the country’s 30 most populous areas.
