- Key insight: Cogent Bank plans to use trust services as a tool to bind wealthy clients more tightly to the bank.
- Supporting data: Both Miami and West Palm Beach saw their millionaire counts double between 2014 and 2024.
- Expert quote: "When a client names an institution as a trustee, that's not something they take lightly or that they're going to go and change as quickly as you can go and open a bank account at another institution." — Madelayne Cordero, who's leading the trust business at Cogent
As people and money continue streaming into Florida, Cogent Bank in Orlando has moved to broaden the list of services it offers to high-net-worth clients.
The $2.45 billion-asset Cogent recently launched a trust services division, tapping Madelayne Cordero, the former chief fiduciary officer at $10.3 billion-asset Amerant Bank in Coral Gables, Florida, to lead the effort.
For community banks in other parts of the country, maintaining an in-house trust department is more and more a road less taken. A number of institutions have outsourced trust to third-party providers in recent years.
Case in point: When Rosemont, Illinois-based Signature Bank decided to enter the trust field in January, it did so by partnering with Midwest Trust in Overland Park, Kansas.
Other banks, including the $6.2 billion-asset First International Bank & Trust in Watford City, North Dakota, have opted to sell off their trust operations.
Such decisions are being made with an eye toward lessening compliance burdens and trimming costs, according to Cordero, who said she understands the trend.
"Trust is not cheap," Cordero, Cogent's managing director of trust services, told American Banker. "It comes with a hefty price tag. … Yes, we contribute to overall income, but you're not going to break the bank on trust fees."
Indeed, trust fees are typically discounted in recognition of clients' wider relationship with a bank. "You're never going to have clients that are just going to have trust relationships," Cordero said.
But if trust services are rarely going to be a rainmaker for a bank, they do offer important benefits, not the least of which is tying lucrative high-net-worth clients more tightly to the institution.
"What anyone will tell you is that trust is very sticky," Cordero said. "When a client names an institution as a trustee, that's not something they take lightly, or that they're going to go and change as quickly as you can go and open a bank account at another institution."
High-net-worth clients are in increasingly important consideration for Florida banks. The Sunshine State continues to act as a magnet, attracting people from other states and countries. According to a
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"We've had an incredible migration of wealth into Florida," Cordero said. "That wealth is here, it's not going anywhere…We need to service it."
Cordero is a trust lifer. She got into the business after graduating from Florida International University in Miami. A recruiter lined up interviews with the trust and investment departments at Northern Trust's Miami office. Cordero recalled being so strongly attracted to trust work that she told the recruiter she was only interested in the trust position.
"What they did for clients, to me, sounded fascinating," Cordero said. "It sounded like something I wanted to do. It just drew me in."
Cordero spent four years at Northern Trust, followed by stints at Wells Fargo, Amicorp Group and the $29.1 billion-asset City National Bank of Florida in Miami. Then from 2022 to 2025, she was at Amerant.
Cordero said she was attracted to Cogent by the opportunity to build a trust department from the ground up. She also warmed to CEO Chirag Bhavsar's management style.
"When he is creating a new vertical for the bank, he'll find the right person and basically give them a blank check," Cordero said. "Obviously, as a professional, that's anyone's dream job. … It's the job I've been waiting for my entire career."
Cordero said her new Cogent Trust Services unit, which is based Coral Gables, will provide the kind of high-touch concierge service that trust teams have traditionally been known for. She also intends to include crypto assets and other emerging sources of wealth in her growth strategy. At its core, though, the group's mission will revolve around planning for a smooth transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. When that happens, "that family will bank with you for life," Cordero said.
