Bankwell Bank is reassembling a team from the defunct Signature Bank to run the New Canaan-based lender’s first full-service branch outside Connecticut, in Brooklyn, New York.

Matthew McNeill, Bankwell’s president and chief banking officer, said the bank had already been exploring expansion, though not necessarily in New York, when industry contacts “highly recommended” a six-member team that had previously worked together at Signature.

“It really was more opportunistic than a planned rollout into New York, although New York City, being just 40 miles south of here, it’s a logical expansion route,” McNeill said. “It just took us having the appropriate banking team to make sure our expansion into New York was very successful, which we anticipate it will be.”

The $3.2 billion bank has two full-service branches in Fairfield, two in Stamford, as well as one each in Darien, Norwalk, Hamden, Stamford, Westport and New Canaan.

It also has a limited-service office in Garden City, New York.

The New York State Department of Financial Services closed Signature Bank amid a rapid withdrawal by depositors in March 2023. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. soon sold almost all assets of the failed bank to Hicksville, New York-based Flagstar Bank.

Bankwell’s new Brooklyn branch will open up “cash-handling” services in New York, McNeill said. This new presence also opens other opportunities, such as allowing Bankwell to handle escrow accounts for New York-based attorneys, he said.

Bankwell currently has no further branch expansion plans, but would consider opportunities as they present themselves, McNeill said.

The former Signature Bank team has been based in Brooklyn for about 20 years, in a location very close to the branch Bankwell is currently fitting out and hopes to open before the close of 2025. This team brings with it preexisting relationships with potential customers, McNeill said.

The move across state lines involved approvals from the FDIC, as well as banking authorities in Connecticut and New York. But Bankwell is already active in New York City, often meeting clients in the area, McNeill noted.

“So, to continue to kind of lean toward New York City in opening this branch in Brooklyn, it’s a big moment, but it also feels very organic and natural to have a location there,” McNeill said.