African-American exec Jordan Miller’s Adelphi Bank raises $24.5 million ahead of public debut

Adelphi Bank, a Black-owned financial institution based in Columbus and led by African-American executive Jordan Miller, has successfully secured $24.5 million in funding from both individual investors and businesses in Ohio, a Midwestern state in the United States.

This $24.5-million capital injection brings the bank closer to meeting the regulatory requirements for a depository institution. In the United States, banks generally need to have between $10 million to $30 million in starting capital to launch.

Adelphi Bank was founded by Miller and Kevin Boyce with the goal of simplifying the complex world of finance and improving its customers’ lives by removing financial equity barriers.

Miller got the idea for Adelphi Bank after receiving a call from Franklin County Commissioner Kevin Boyce following George Floyd’s death and during the height of the pandemic in 2020.

At that time, Boyce, Miller, and other prominent Black leaders in Columbus recognized the lack of access to capital and opportunities for wealth-building in minority communities in Central Ohio. This prompted their decision to establish a bank that would cater to these needs.

The Jordan Miller-led bank, which will offer a full range of consumer and commercial products, has received approval to open as a minority depository institution from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Ohio Department of Financial Institutions.

In addition to the $24.5-million injection from investors, the approval to launch, which represents a watershed moment for the founders, will see Adelphi Bank make its public debut in April, making it the only Black-owned bank in Ohio and the twenty-first Black-owned bank in the country.

Miller, the bank’s CEO, plans to increase financial equity and create meaningful wealth in order to provide seamless and straightforward banking without inherent bias.

Adelphi Bank’s upcoming launch will cater to the needs of the black community, where roughly 40 percent of the population is unbanked.