Valley National Bancorp, doing business as Valley Bank, is a regional bank holding company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, with approximately $64 billion in assets. Its principal subsidiary, Valley National Bank (also doing business as Valley Bank, or just Valley), currently operates over 230 branch locations and commercial banking offices across New Jersey, New York, Florida, Alabama, California, and Illinois. Valley Bank is one of the largest commercial banks headquartered in New Jersey.
History
Founded in 1927 as the Passaic Park Trust Company, the bank changed its name in the mid 1930s to the Bank of Passaic and Trust Company. In 1956 the Bank of Passaic and Trust Company acquired the Bank of Allwood located in Clifton, New Jersey, and changed its name to The Bank of Passaic and Clifton. The acquisition of the Bank of Wayne in 1976 created a need for a new identity to show the expanded geographic reach of the bank, and the name Valley National Bank was chosen, in reference to the lower Passaic River valley shared by Wayne, Clifton, and Passaic.[2]
In 1983, Valley National Bancorp was formed as the holding company of Valley National Bank.
In 1989, Samuel F. Riskin[3] retired as the chairman and chief executive officer of the company. Riskin had served as the longest-tenured president of Valley National Bank, having been appointed in 1953.