PORTLAND – A group of former bankers with ties to York County plans to open an independently owned bank in Kennebunk.

Rivergreen Bank would be the first new full-service commercial bank in Maine since Merrill Merchants Bank opened in Bangor in 1991.

The group said the community bank will focus on the business, professional and manufacturing sectors. According to its application to the state Bureau of Financial Institutions, the bank will provide specialized commercial lending services that are “not available from the larger, out-of-state controlled institutions due to their centralized, highly mandated credit standards.”

The challenge for the group, according to James Ackor, equity research analyst at RBC Capital Markets, will be finding sufficient loan demand.

“Banks go into business to make loans, and the economy’s not been terribly robust,” Ackor said. But he said southern Maine is the part of the state with the most potential for economic growth.

Organizers of the new bank include Terrance Beers, formerly of Ocean National Bank, Dennis Byrd, who worked at Coastal Bank, and A. William Cannan, who was chief operating officer at Northeast Bancorp.

Cannan said the impetus for Rivergreen Bank was the sale last fall of Ocean National Bank to Chittenden Corp., which is based in Burlington, Vt.

Some Ocean National shareholders and some members of the board of directors opposed the merger, concerned about losing local control of the 147-year-old bank.

“That was a divisive kind of deal,” Cannan said.

The Bureau of Financial Institutions is expected to make a decision on the bank’s application by fall.