First Trust Advisors, a Wheaton, Ill.-based asset management firm, will launch an exchange-traded fund to track the American Banker Association’s index of the U.S.’s most actively traded community banks and thrifts, the American Bankers Association announced today. The First Trust NASDAQ ABA Community Bank Index Fund will begin trading on Wednesday.

The ABA acknowledged the irony of launching a bank ETF while public opinion about lenders is so poor. “There has been a misperception that the entire banking system has been brushed with wholesale problems,” said Diane Casey-Landry, a senior executive vice president and chief operating officer of the American Bankers Association. Casey-Landry added that the vast majority of community banks are generally well capitalized and did not perform as badly as large banks and other large financial institutions. “This is going to allow people to distinguish that there is a segment of our industry that is still healthy and performing,” she said.

ABA’s community bank index follows the performance of the sector’s most actively traded stocks among the 482 community banks listed on the NASDAQ. The First Trust Advisors ETF will constitute 102 banks, Casey-Landry said.