EVERETT — A few years ago, Frontier Bank was growing into one of the largest Washington-based banking companies, but it still held second place when it came to its share of Snohomish County’s deposits.
Seattle-based Washington Mutual held 17 percent, or a bit less than $1.4 billion, in deposits locally, compared with 16 percent, or $1.3 billion, for Frontier Bank as of 2006.
That continued a trend seen since 2001. The previous year, Frontier barely beat out WaMu for the No. 1 spot.
When last year’s deposit figures from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. came out, however, Everett-based Frontier was back in the driver’s seat.
In fact, for two years running now, three of the top five deposit holders in Snohomish County are locally based community banks. Washington Mutual and Bank of America are the only national giants to rank near the top.
Investors may most often judge community banks based on their stock prices and asset totals, but the market share statistics are a good indication of how the banks are doing with customers.
“It’s an important measure of success to the company, so that’s part of our strategic focus,” said Carol Nelson, president of Everett-based Cascade Bank. That bank ranks fifth in the county in terms of deposits and dominates the market on its home turf of north Everett.
Sara Hasan, a bank analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen in Seattle, said deposit totals are getting more attention after years of focus on banks’ lending business.
“I think what you’ve seen, especially in the last year or so, is community banks more focused on the deposit side of the balance sheet,” she said.
And when it comes to attracting customers, especially individual and small business accounts, community banks can compete effectively against the bigger banks, Hasan said.
“There’s definitely a local service element,” she said, adding that community banks often help customers and small businesses who can’t receive the same attention from bigger banks.
John Dickson, Frontier Bank’s president, said it’s the way for smaller banks to grab business, even when they don’t have the same marketing budgets as the biggest banks in the nation.
“Even though we’ve become what some would call a large bank, we still try to push decision-making at the branch level,” he said.
Nelson said Cascade has ramped up its money management services and checking account promotions to drive deposits. As with Frontier, local service, including a call center to answer customers’ questions, is a big competitive advantage.
In addition to local banks grabbing larger slices of the market, the overall banking business in the county keeps growing, according to the FDIC’s statistics. Last year, total deposits at banks throughout the county totaled more than $8.85 billion, up from less than $8.1 billion in 2006 and just more than $7.2 billion in 2005.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
