Carver Federal Savings Bank, opened under the leadership of M. Moran Weston in 1948, is the "largest black-owned financial institution" in the United States. Carver Bancorp, Inc. is its holding company. Carver has been designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). History Carver applied for a federal charter "after the state had denied it a charter," and opened "in a simple storefront." Carver Federal Savings Bank was not the first bank named after George Washington Carver. Four years earlier another unrelated bank, Carver Savings and Loan Association, opened in Omaha, Nebraska. Neither of these were the first Black-owned American bank. This bank, however, is the largest and oldest continually Black-operated USA bank. Weston already had earlier experience as 1945-founder of a credit union, and, for Carver, had a supporting team of 14. Carver served multiple purposes: "to help black homeowners obtain first mortgages" Blacks trained at Carver went on to work at other banks along with Carver co-founder Josph E. Davis, it hired future leaders, such as Richard T. Greene Sr, "who for 30 years was the president and a director." Branch structure Carver began operations at 53 West 125th Street in 1948. On November 5, 1948, Carver Federal Savings and Loan Association received a federal bank charter. The first branch opened on January 5, 1949, in Harlem, New York at 53 West 125th Street. In February 1961, Carver opened a second branch in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. In June 1975, a third branch was opened in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. Carver'''s branch count was seven in 2001; by 2007 it was ten. Corporate structure In July 1982, Carver merged with Allied Federal Bank. Carver became a federal savings bank and changed its name to Carver Federal Savings Bank in 1986. In 1999 the bank "headed off" an attempt by a Boston-based bank to take it over. The bank expanded in 2004 by acquiring Independence Federal Savings Bank''. Carver Federal Savings Bank headquarters Carver Bank is headquartered in the Lee Building at 1825 Park Avenue in Harlem, New York. Its closest branch is at the location of the bank's previous headquarters, a four-story building at 75 West 125th Street, New York, NY which was owned and operated by Carver since 1956. The bank vacated the building between October 1992 and March 1996, after it was destroyed by