WASHINGTON — One of the oldest community banks in the D.C. region is now the largest locally-based community bank in the region. Sandy Spring Bancorp has completed its $447 million acquisition of Reston-based WashingtonFirst Bank, effective Jan. 1.
WashingtonFirst Bank’s branding will change to Sandy Spring Bank with the full conversion of systems expected to be completed before the end of the first quarter, Sandy Spring now says.
Sandy Spring now has $7.5 billion in assets.
The merger creates a bank with more than 60 regional branches.
Sandy Spring has been growing organically even before the WashingtonFirst acquisition. Its total deposits in the third quarter of 2017 were up 12 percent from a year earlier.
Its third quarter loans increased 11 percent from a year ago, driven by its commercial lending business.
Sandy Spring was founded in the 1860s as one of the first post-Civil War area community banks in the country.
