The Bank of Montreal has established a technology center in Irving to fuel American expansion

Bank of Montreal is establishing a technology center in Irving to help it gain a stronger foothold in the US.

“As we move away from Canada, we have to spend a lot of time building the brand,” said Sidney DeLoach, chief information and operations officer at BMO Commercial Bank.

Based in Montreal, with U.S. headquarters in Chicago, he expects to soon have more branches in the U.S. than in Canada.

BMO, which is more than 200 years old and has nearly $820 billion in assets, hired consulting firm EY to look at the best cities in America to house its tech powerhouse. EY landed on North Texas, beating out other top picks like Charlotte and Atlanta, DeLoach said.

“The drivers behind Dallas is that it’s the fastest growing tech hub in America and it’s going to be the third largest city in America soon, and we have a big place in Dallas that a lot of people don’t know about,” he said.

The full-service bank has about 280 employees in the Dallas-Fort Worth division of Irving, where its transportation finance group is headquartered. Fort Worth, where the Treasurer’s office is located; and Dallas downtown, with a commercial sales team. About 100 of D-FW’s employees are in tech and operations.

For the technology center, the company plans to start hiring for about 50 technology and operations positions. The company said salaries will vary as there are junior and senior positions. DeLoach said the staff will be housed in BMO’s Irving office building because three of the six floors are unused.

BMO hosted a recruiting event Thursday, to which about 60 were invited and about 50 attended, DeLoach said. The company plans to organize a similar event in the next few months.

“We feel very strongly that we can continue to compete here in terms of compensation and benefits,” he said. “We feel strongly about what we can offer socially and culturally.”

The new technology center follows a similar announcement by Pittsburgh-based PNC in April that it is establishing a technology center for 200 employees in a Farmers branch.

BMO, which has not missed a dividend since 1829, has about 50,000 employees worldwide, including about 9,000 in tech and operations jobs, DeLoach said.

In December, BMO announced it would buy San Francisco-based Bank of the West, which has about $105 billion in assets and more than 500 branches and offices in 24 states — mostly in the West and Midwest.

After the acquisition closes, which is expected to happen in the last three months of the year, BMO will significantly increase its U.S. presence, Deloatch said.

“BMO will have more branches for consumers in the United States than in its home country,” he said.