Popular history

Five years later, the United States occupied and annexed Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Banco Popular's deposits dropped by two-thirds in that year, and a hurricane devastated the island in 1899.

Representatives of Spanish-import trading houses were the main stockholders and customers in this period (and still among the bank's largest customers 35 years later). Deposits of $921,090.98 in 1913 set a record not surpassed for more than a decade thereafter.

1923:Banco Popular is founded again as a commercial bank.

Rafael Carrion Pacheco became the majority stockholder in 1927.

In 1937 Banco Popular became the biggest bank in Puerto Rico, taking in $8.82 million in deposits that year.

Work began on an Art Deco headquarters building that was completed in 1939.

In 1951 it established a mobile bank-on-wheels at Fort Buchanan.

Auto loans were introduced in 1957.

In 1961 Banco Popular opened its first United States mainland branch, in the city's borough of the Bronx.

A second one, in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center, was established in 1964.

Founded in 1971 as Banco de Ponce, BanPonce was the fourth-largest Puerto Rican bank, with 40 branches on the island and 14 in New York--where it was the pioneering Puerto Rican bank.

The bank acquired the insolvent Banco Credito y Ahorro Ponceno (Ponce Credit and Savings Bank) in 1978, including 36 of that bank's 50 branches.

GM Group, incorporated in 1989, was providing electronic data processing and consulting services, sale and rental of electronic data-processing equipment, and sale and maintenance of computer software to clients in 10 countries.

The following decade started with a big development for the bank, when in 1990 it merged with Banco de Ponce, one of the largest banks in Puerto Rico.

Banco Popular enhanced its position as the leading choice for New York City's growing Hispanic population in 1991, when it purchased the failed Bronx-based New York Capital Bank.

In 1998, Banco Popular began offering a check-cashing service in the United States which was named Popular Cash Express.

The bank also entered Florida that year by acquiring Seminole National Bank in Sanford, and by the spring of 1999 held eight branches in that state.

Popular, Inc. was the 35th largest bank-holding company in the United States at the end of 2000, with consolidated assets of $28.1 billion and total deposits of $14.8 billion.

Popular, Inc.'s largest shareholder in 2001 consisted of the employee retirement and profit-sharing plans that owned 8.1 percent of the common stock.

In the January 24, 2005 issue of Fortune, Popular, Inc. was chosen as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For.

As of January, 2012, Popular, Inc. still owed $935 million to the US government Troubled Asset Relief Program.

In 2014, Popular Community Bank sold many of its mainland United States branches in Central Florida, Illinois and Southern California to cut costs and shore up its reserves against losses caused by foreclosures and the recession in Puerto Rico.