LOS ANGELES, May 20, 2026, 08:05 PDT
Hanmi Financial Corp. shares rose in regular Nasdaq trading on Wednesday, helped by a firmer regional-bank tape and fresh attention on the Los Angeles lender’s cash return to investors.
HAFC was up $0.54, or about 1.8%, at $29.98 after opening at $29.45. The stock had touched $30.05 earlier in the session, with Hanmi’s market value near $894 million.
Why now: the move comes on the day Hanmi’s second-quarter dividend, a cash payment to common shareholders, was due to be paid. A filing showed the board declared a $0.28-per-share dividend payable May 20 to holders of record as of May 4.
The bank rally was not just Hanmi. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF, a broad proxy for U.S. regional lenders, rose about 2.2%. Hope Bancorp gained about 2.2%, Preferred Bank rose about 1.9% and OP Bancorp advanced about 1.7%, putting HAFC in line with smaller banking peers rather than a one-off move.
Hanmi’s latest earnings backdrop remains central to the trade. The company reported first-quarter net income of $22.6 million, or $0.75 per diluted share, with deposits at $6.8 billion and loans at $6.55 billion. Net interest margin — the gap between what a bank earns on loans and securities and what it pays for deposits and other funding — rose to 3.38%.
Chief Executive Bonnie Lee called the quarter “strong results” and cited “positive trends” in deposits, margin and expenses. She also said asset quality remained “excellent,” as nonperforming assets, meaning troubled loans or assets not producing normal payments, fell to 0.16% of total assets. Hanmi Financial Corporation
Investors are watching that margin closely because regional banks remain sensitive to the path of interest rates. The Federal Reserve calendar showed minutes from the April 28-29 policy meeting were scheduled for release later Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET, a potential read on funding costs and loan demand across the sector.
Hanmi has also tried to shift its loan mix. Commercial and industrial, or C&I, loans — credit to operating businesses rather than property loans — reached 17.6% of total loans in the first quarter, while C&I production rose 64% from new banking relationships, the company reported.
But the setup is not clean. Hanmi said criticized loans rose to $116.4 million from $97.0 million in the prior quarter, driven by a $21.2 million commercial real estate downgrade. Net charge-offs, loans written off after expected nonpayment, were $2.6 million, or 0.16% of loans annualized.
The company has also flagged broader risks that could hit performance, including deposit competition, swings in interest rates, real-estate values, credit quality and cyber or third-party operating failures. Those are standard bank risks, but they matter more when investors are paying for dividend stability and margin improvement.
Hanmi Financial, parent of Hanmi Bank, is headquartered in Los Angeles and serves multi-ethnic communities through 32 full-service branches and eight loan production offices across states including California, Texas, Illinois, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Washington and Georgia. The bank focuses on real estate, commercial, SBA and trade-finance lending to small and middle-market businesses.
The next scheduled company marker is Hanmi’s annual meeting on May 27 at 10:30 a.m. PDT. Until then, the stock’s direction is likely to lean on the same two things moving regional banks this week: how durable deposit-cost relief looks, and whether credit stress stays contained.
