Founder & CEO Forbright Bank
President Forbright Bank Asset Finance
For the sixth consecutive year, more American bank customers are managing their money from a smartphone than from any other channel. According to a national survey by the American Bankers Association, 54% of bank customers now say a mobile app is their primary way of managing an ac- count — more than double the 26% who said so when ABA first asked the question in 2017.1 Only 22% still favor online banking through a laptop or PC, and just 9% name a branch as their top channel.1
For John Delaney, founder and CEO of Forbright Bank, those numbers aren’t a sur- prise. They’re the thesis he built a bank around. Forbright, the Chevy Chase, MD-based bank that traces its roots to Congressional Bank, went public on the Nasdaq this summer under the ticker FRBT. Delaney, who served three terms in the U.S. House representing Maryland and ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, had already built and taken public HealthCare Financial Partners and CapitalSource before returning to banking. He bought a controlling stake in Congressional Bank as a passive investment before running for Congress, then relaunched it as Forbright five years ago on a strategy built squarely on the trends the ABA data now confirm.“When I look back at HealthCare Financial Partners and CapitalSource, which were great businesses with terrific cultures and wonderful teams, I hadn’t thought through the long-term strategy as much as we have here,” Delaney says. Those companies, he says, were built primarily around the asset side of the business — how to make loans and find opportunities. “The funding side was more short-term focused than long-term focused,” Delaney says. “The difference with Forbright is we’ve been very deliberate in thinking through how we fund this business across the long term.” That deliberateness extended to how Forbright came together. Rather than start a bank from scratch, Delaney built on a platform he already controlled: Several of his former CapitalSource colleagues had already landed at Congressional Bank, and the 16- or 17-year-old community bank was well known to regulators. “It made it a much easier path than starting something de novo,” he says.
THE DEPOSIT MATH
Forbright’s national digital deposit strategy was part of the original business plan when Congressional Bank was reformulated five years ago, Delaney says, and the bank has spent heavily building what he calls a best- in-class platform. The thesis: Customers use banks for transactional services, like checking and payroll, and as a safe place to deposit savings — and that second category’s return has historically been depressed by branch costs. “If you run a lot of branches, you can’t pay your depositors as much, because you have to pay landlords and the costs associ- ated with running branches,” Delaney says. “The digital world would disintermediate these branches, and banks not burdened with that cost could pay more for deposits.” He points to a familiar pattern: technology rooting out inefficiency, the way free stock trades replaced brokerage fees. Applied to savings accounts, Delaney argues the math is substantial: If every consumer savings account in the U.S. were repriced from typical branch rates to what digital banks pay, he es- timates consumers would collect $50 billion to $70 billion more in interest each year. “In a country that has an affordability crisis, that’s a lot of money,” he says. The ABA survey lends independent support to that shift. Ninety-five percent of consumers now rate their bank’s online and mobile app experience as excellent, very good or good, and 86% say technological innovation is making it easier for all Americans — including those in remote areas — to access financial services.1 The generational data is especially telling: 67% of millennials and 63% of Gen Z say mobile is their primary banking channel, and for the first time since ABA began track- ing the survey, baby boomers named mobile banking — not online banking via laptop — as their top choice, at 38%.1 To support that deposit strategy, Forbright still needs strong returns on its assets, which Delaney says is why the bank built out spe- cialized lending teams rather than a gener- alist model. “The whole Forbright model is based on delivering value for our customers,” he says. “We deliver a terrific digital experi- ence and a good rate for our deposits, and for our borrowers, we bring customized lending solutions and fast solutions, so we give a better experience there too. That creates a flywheel where it all kind of works together.”
GOING PUBLIC WITHOUT CHANGING COURSE
Forbright’s IPO this year raised primary capi- tal but didn’t alter that strategy. “I always think going public is simply a financing transaction — a way to raise capital,” Delaney says, noting that Forbright, as an FDIC-regulated bank, already filed public quarterly financial state- ments before its listing. The additional capital gives Forbright room to make more loans toward its long-term target: a $50 billion to $100 billion bank. That growth has come with a trade-off in its branch network. Forbright recently an- nounced plans to sell down to a single branch — its headquarters — cementing its identity as a digital-first institution.
WHERE AI FITS
Asked where artificial intelligence will change banking first — underwriting, servicing or deposits — Delaney answers: all of it, plus a fourth area most people overlook. “We think about AI a lot when we lend money to companies, because we think about how AI is going to affect their business,” he says, citing the market’s reassessment of software companies’ prospects as one factor now shaping Forbright’s credit decisions. On underwriting, Delaney says Forbright is automating rote work, freeing lenders to focus on judgment calls the bank never wants to delegate to technology. Servicing and portfolio man- agement, he says, is “probably where there’s the most immediate applicability,” given how much of the work involves spreading numbers and compiling borrower data. On deposits, Delaney sees a near future in which consumers use AI agents to move savings to whichever bank pays the best rate — a shift that plays directly to Forbright’s strengths. “You’d need a really good digital platform to interact successfully with those agents, which is what we’ve built,” he says.
THE NEXT THREE YEARS
Delaney expects the deposit shift to keep accelerating. Digital deposits have been the fast- est-growing segment of the U.S. bank deposit market for the past decade or two, a trend he sees bringing more branch closures and, in turn, more bank mergers as institutions that can’t afford digital platforms look for a way out. He also expects banks to be- come more specialized lenders, a byproduct of rising deposit costs. “Historically, banks were able to attract very low-cost deposits in their branches, and it allowed them to be less discerning in how they lend money,” he says. “Cost of funds are going to go up be- cause consumers demand a fair rate. That’s profoundly good for consumers, but banks have to be smarter with how they lend.” Congressional Bank operated for two decades before its relaunch, but the Forbright name is only five years old. “People are just starting to get to know us,” he says. “I think we’re building what banking should be — the bank of the future.”
BUILDING ASSET FINANCE FROM THE GROUND UP
That future includes a bet on a decidedly less digital corner of the business: mid-ticket equipment finance. Forbright launched its Asset Finance group this year under President William “Will” Perry, who spent nearly a decade at Regions Equipment Finance, including several years as its president, after beginning his career at GE Capital. Delaney wanted an equipment finance platform since his time at CapitalSource, he says, but had been waiting for the right leader. “The key to me for all these businesses is who’s the leader,” he says. “Do we have a person who is skilled, experienced, collegial, ethical, professional? When we were able to meet Will, it was so obvious he was the kind of leader we needed. For Perry, the appeal was less about the market opportunity than the latitude he was given. “What John brought was some- thing different — not only a clear vision of what he wanted to build, but the latitude for my leadership team to truly create something modern and efficient,” Perry says, citing the bank’s culture as an additional draw. Perry describes the mandate as being handed the keys to build something from scratch inside a newly public bank — a level of ownership that extends deep into daily operations. “Our team is involved in every aspect of the business, from strategy to credit, systems, processes and opera- tions,” he says. “John has given us the freedom to determine what works best, rather than trying to coexist within a constrained legacy bank model.” The group launched ahead of schedule.
THE FOUNDING TEAM
Perry built his founding group around industry veterans he described as bringing an “extraor- dinarily strong work ethic” and a desire to leave a mark on the plat- form. The group includes David Cardew, who leads originations and came out of retirement to join; Faraz Abbasi, who oversees operations; and Christine Holguin, who leads credit alongside Leslie Diedrich. “They helped shape our strategy, our operating model and our culture from the ground up,” Perry says. “Everyone on the team understands how rare and special this opportunity is.”
BOUTIQUE BY DESIGN
Perry has been explicit that Forbright Asset Finance isn’t chasing scale for its own sake. “We’re highly selective in who we target from a customer base and the opportunities we pursue,” he says. “There’s plenty of capital in the market, so we’d rather do fewer transactions excep- tionally well than pursue volume for volume’s sake.” Credit quality, sustained portfolio per- formance and exceptional execution, he says, are the group’s three highest priorities. That discipline extends to growth pace. Without disclosing figures, Perry described the group’s early results as exceeding expectations. But he called the platform’s biggest constraint self-imposed: “We do not want to grow faster than our people, systems, processes or our risk framework can support.” In 2026, the group is focused strictly on debt-like products, with plans to introduce a broader mix of lease and loan products beginning in 2027.
A DIFFERENT GO-TO-MARKET MODEL
Perry’s approach also marks a departure from the model he learned earlier in his career, when growth meant putting more people on the ground to make more calls. “I don’t believe success today is about having more people on the ground,” Perry says. “It’s more about having the right people and leveraging the right technology.” He says the team is already using AI in ways that surprised him, calling it “a big tailwind.” Rather than broad-based volume, Perry describes the group’s strategy as “more like a rifle shot” — partnering selectively with peer institutions and purchasing transactions they originate, with the goal of becoming those partners’ most trusted and depend- able source of capital. Over time, that same philosophy will extend into direct customer relationships.
AN OPENING IN THE MARKET
Perry sees the equipment finance landscape shifting in Forbright’s favor. During the 2023 regional banking crisis, banks pulled back from equipment finance as they managed competing pressures around deposits, liquid- ity and treasury relationships — a dynamic now drawing attention on Capitol Hill. “Those pressures invariably pull institutions in and out of the equipment finance market, creating opportunities for platforms like ours that can bring committed capital and consistent long- term strategies,” he says. He expects equipment finance to become less a standalone product and more a strategic entry point into broader commer- cial banking relationships in an increasingly commoditized market. “We combine the resources and support of a bank with the agility, specialization and responsiveness of a boutique platform,” he says. “We do not need to be the largest provider, nor is that our goal. My goal is to become one of the most trusted and highest-performing equipment finance platforms in the market.”
WHERE ASSET FINANCE FITS
Delaney, for his part, isn’t ruling out size. Forbright runs six specialized national lending businesses — healthcare finance, commer- cial real estate, lender finance, fund finance, leveraged finance and now asset finance — and he wouldn’t be surprised if the newest becomes the largest within three to five years, given the scale of the opportunity and Perry’s track record. “Will ran a business that is big- ger than all of Forbright right now, just to put it into context,” Delaney says. “We’re planning on building a $50 billion to $100 billion bank, and this is going to be a big part of that.” Between a deposit strategy built for a mo- bile-banking wave the ABA’s own numbers show is still accelerating, and a boutique equipment finance platform built for a market skittish banks are retreating from, Forbright is betting its next chapter looks less like a traditional community bank — and more like the institution now defined by the phone in customers’ pockets.
1“National Survey: Bank Customers Continue to Use Mobile Apps More Than Any Other Channel to Manage Their Accounts,” American Bankers Association, Nov. 18, 2025.
