How Jacksonville faded as a banking headquarters

[marcuscnelson]

The Daily Record has a new article out about the mergers that led to banking industry leaving town.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/how-city-faded-as-a-banking-headquarters

[jaxlongtimer]

The Daily Record has a new article out about the mergers that led to banking industry leaving town.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/how-city-faded-as-a-banking-headquarters

Jacksonville also had a number of large savings and loans (First Federal, Duval Federal, Fidelity Federal, American Federal, Jacksonville Federal, etc.) that mostly merged into banks over time.  And, significant credit unions, the largest being Jax Navy Federal Credit Union/now Vystar.

Further, in the world of finance, Jacksonville was often called the "Hartford of the South" for all the insurance companies (American Heritage/now Allstate, Independent Life, Gulf Life, Voyager, Professional Insurance, Guaranty Life, Carolina Casualty, Florida Blue, Peninsular, Afro-American, Zurich Insurance Services/now US Assure, etc.) headquartered here plus hosting major regional offices of Prudential and State Farm. (See a nice overview of Jax's insurance history by JF Bryan IV, from the founding family of Independent Life, here:   https://www.jaxhistory.org/jacksonville-formerly-the-hartford-of-the-south/ ).

Jax was also a major player in mortgage banking with Stockton Whatley Davin, Charter/then Alliance/then Everbank/now TIAA, Tucker Brothers, Atlantic Mortgage/Pitney Bowes, etc. plus all the mortgages issued by the savings and loans.  Along with that, we had several major title companies such as Florida Title.

This history lives on today in Jacksonville with the fintech industry led by Fidelity National and its offspring (FIS, Black Knight) that came here via acquiring Computer Power/Alltel, a spinout of Stockton Whatley Davin's computer servicing operations.  Major operations of Wells Fargo and Bank of America ended up here as a result of their acquiring Jacksonville banks.  Those seeds attracted other companies over time such as Fidelity Investments and Merrill Lynch (which arrived here well before its acquisition by BofA).  Add all the financial services (e.g. Dun & Bradstreet, Sofi, etc.) and software companies that are here today as the snowball goes downhill gathering mass.