Unity National Bank, headquartered in Houston, Texas, with $209 million in assets, is the eighth largest African American owned bank by assets. It is located just a stone’s throw away from Texas Southern University. Recently the bank named Pedro Bryant, a Morris Brown College alum, its new CEO and President. Unity National Bank has an immense opportunity to move up the rankings for African American banks with the right strategy. According to an Apartment List report in February 2024, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and Austin rank as the third, fourth, sixth, and seventh best cities in the US for African American professionals. Lendio also reports that Texas is home to over 400,000 African American owned businesses and almost 13,000 are employer firms. These ingredients mean that with Unity National Bank being the only African American owned bank in the state the runway for growth is theirs to capture. This also means a strengthening of ties between HBCUs and the African America private sector are that much stronger. The lack of cohesion between the two institutions (100 HBCUs and 16 African American owned banks) has largely been one of the key ingredients holding back the African American economy as intellectual and economic capital rarely circulates between HBCUs and the African American owned employer firms.
Unity National Bank’s Full Press Release:
HBCU Money 