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Wilshire Bancorp Declares Cash Dividend

SB Informer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; 03:40 AM

Wilshire Bancorp, Inc. (Nasdaq:WIBC), the holding company for Wilshire State Bank, announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.05 per common share. The dividend will be payable on or about October 16, 2006, to shareholders of record at the close of business on September 29, 2006.

Wilshire Bancorp and its subsidiary Wilshire State Bank have received significant accolades for growth, performance and profitability. Earlier this month, Sandler O'Neill released its Bank and Thrift Sm-All Stars -- Class of 2006, recognizing 34 of the 573 publicly traded institutions with assets of less than $2 billion, focusing on growth, profitability, credit quality and capital strength. Wilshire is one of only nine companies to be named each year since the list's inception in 2004. In April, Wilshire Bancorp was added to the Standard & Poor's SmallCap 600 index, and in January, US Banker magazine named Wilshire Bancorp third in its All-Star Lineup -- The Top 20 Banks of 2006, based on year-over-year ROE. In September 2005, Fortune named Wilshire the 79th fastest-growing public company in the nation. A month earlier, US Banker ranked Wilshire 7th on its list of the Top 100 Publicly Traded Mid-Tier Banks, those with less than $10 billion in assets, based on their three-year ROE.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, Wilshire State Bank (www.wilshirebank.com) operates 19 branch offices in California, Texas and New York and seven loan production offices in San Jose, Seattle, Las Vegas, Houston, Atlanta, Denver, and Annandale, Virginia, and is an SBA preferred lender nationwide. Wilshire State Bank is a community bank with a focus on commercial real estate lending and general commercial banking, with its primary market encompassing the multi-ethnic populations of the Los Angeles Metropolitan area. Wilshire Bancorp's strategic goals include increasing shareholder and franchise value by continuing to grow its multi-ethnic banking business and expanding its geographic reach to other similar markets with strong levels of small business activity.