Wintrust Financial is a bank holding company headquartered in Rosemont, Illinois, focused on community banking across the Chicago metro area, southern Wisconsin, northwest Indiana, and west Michigan. Wintrust operates through 16 separately chartered community banks with 209 locations, each running under a local brand with local management — a deliberate structure that Wintrust argues allows it to deliver relationship-driven service that large national banks cannot replicate at scale. This multi-charter setup also enables MaxSafe, a product that spreads deposits across subsidiary banks to provide customers with FDIC insurance well beyond the standard $250K limit. Wintrust makes money primarily through net interest income — the spread between loan yields and deposit costs — with a loan book of over $50B and a NIM in the 3.50–3.56% range. The loan book is predominantly variable-rate. Beyond core commercial and consumer lending, Wintrust operates two smaller but meaningful segments: Specialty Finance (~18% of net revenues), dominated by insurance premium finance through FIRST Insurance Funding, which lends nationally to businesses and high-net-worth individuals financing insurance premiums; and Wealth Management (~7% of net revenues), offering trust, investment management, and brokerage services primarily in the Midwest. Wintrust also originates residential mortgages for sale into the secondary market. Growth is primarily organic, targeting mid- to high single-digit loan growth annually, supplemented by selective bolt-on acquisitions in adjacent Midwestern markets.