EXHIBIT 99.1

Hanmi Financial Corporation Announces Additional Share Repurchase Program

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hanmi Financial Corporation (the “Company”) (NASDAQ: HAFC), the holding company for Hanmi Bank (the “Bank”), announced today that its Board of Directors has adopted a new stock repurchase program.  Under the current repurchase program, the Company may repurchase up to 5% of its outstanding shares or approximately 1.5 million shares of its common stock. In August 2018, the Bank authorized a stock repurchase plan of up to 5%, or 1.6 million shares, which was completed during the fourth quarter of 2018 and previously reported.

“Hanmi is committed to maximizing shareholder value, and we feel that today’s announcement is a positive step towards this goal,” said C. G. Kum, Chief Executive Officer. “This is the second repurchase program authorized by the bank in the past six months. We continue to believe the current market value of our stock is not indicative of Hanmi’s long-term intrinsic value and the adoption of a new repurchase program is a timely and appropriate use of our capital resources.”

The repurchase program permits shares to be repurchased in open market or private transactions, through block trades, and pursuant to any trading plan that may be adopted in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Repurchases will be made at management’s discretion at prices management considers to be attractive and in the best interests of both the Company and its stockholders, subject to the availability of stock, general market conditions, the trading price of the stock, alternative uses for capital, and the Company’s financial performance. 

The repurchase program may be suspended, terminated or modified at any time for any reason, including market conditions, the cost of repurchasing shares, the availability of alternative investment opportunities, liquidity, and other factors deemed appropriate. These factors may also affect the timing and amount of share repurchases.  The repurchase program does not obligate the Company to purchase any particular number of shares.

About Hanmi Financial Corporation
Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Hanmi Financial Corporation owns Hanmi Bank, which serves multi-ethnic communities through its network of 39 full-service branches and 9 loan production offices in California, Texas, Illinois, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Washington and Georgia. Hanmi Bank specializes in real estate, commercial, SBA and trade finance lending to small and middle market businesses. Additional information is available at www.hanmi.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are included in accordance with the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “could,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” or “continue,” or the negative of such terms and other comparable terminology. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are “forward–looking statements” for purposes of federal and state securities laws, including, but not limited to, statements about anticipated future operating and financial performance, financial position and liquidity, business strategies, regulatory and competitive outlook, investment and expenditure plans, capital and financing needs and availability, litigation, plans and objectives of management for future operations, developments regarding our capital plans, strategic alternatives for a possible business combination, merger or sale transaction, and other similar forecasts and statements of expectation and statements of assumption underlying any of the foregoing. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statement. These factors include the following: failure to maintain adequate levels of capital and liquidity to support our operations; the effect of potential future supervisory action against us or Hanmi Bank; general economic and business conditions internationally, nationally and in those areas in which we operate; volatility and deterioration in the credit and equity markets; changes in consumer spending, borrowing and savings habits; availability of capital from private and government sources; demographic changes; competition for loans and deposits and failure to attract or retain loans and deposits; fluctuations in interest rates and a decline in the level of our interest rate spread; risks of natural disasters related to our real estate portfolio; risks associated with Small Business Administration loans; failure to attract or retain key employees; changes in governmental regulation, including, but not limited to, any increase in FDIC insurance premiums; ability of Hanmi Bank to make distributions to Hanmi Financial Corporation, which is restricted by certain factors, including Hanmi Bank’s retained earnings, net income, prior distributions made, and certain other financial tests; ability to identify a suitable strategic partner or to consummate a strategic transaction; adequacy of our allowance for loan and lease losses; credit quality and the effect of credit quality on our provision for loan and lease losses and allowance for loan and lease losses; changes in the financial performance and/or condition of our borrowers and the ability of our borrowers to perform under the terms of their loans and other terms of credit agreements; our ability to control expenses; and changes in securities markets. In addition, we set forth certain risks in our reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and Current Reports on Form 8-K that we will file hereafter, which could cause actual results to differ from those projected. We undertake no obligation to update such forward-looking statements except as required by law.

Investor Contacts:
Romolo (Ron) Santarosa
Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
213-427-5636

Richard Pimentel
Senior Vice President & Corporate Finance Officer
213-427-3191

Lasse Glassen
Investor Relations
Addo Investor Relations
424-238-6249