Last year, financial institutions had to contend with record-low interest rates and a glut of deposits. But that didn’t stop community banks from becoming vital partners to businesses, delivering a blend of personalized service and prudent risk management practices that you might not be able to get from a large national bank.
Based on 2021 FDIC data, the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) assigned community banks a score that weighs the average of a bank’s percentile rank for lending concentration and loan growth over the past year. Each score was also adjusted for loan charge offs at certain percentile thresholds.
Here’s now a new report from ICBA ranked the top 10 commercial community banks, grouped by size.
Less than $300 million in assets
The smallest community banks with the best lending are:
- Barwick Banking Company (Barwick, GA)
- State Bank (Rock Springs, WY)
- California International Bank, N.A. (Westminster, CA)
- Kendall Bank (Valley Falls, KS)
- United Bank of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA)
- PeopleFirst Bank (Joliet, IL)
- CapTex Bank, National Association (Trenton, TX)
- Unity National Bank (Houston, TX)
- The Home Savings and Loan Company of Kenton, Ohio (Kenton, OH), and
- North Valley Bank (Denver, CO).
$300 million-$1 billion in assets
These mid-size community banks ranked tops:
- MRV Banks (Sainte Genevieve, MO)
- Quaint Oak Bank (Southampton, PA)
- Flagship Bank (Clearwater, FL)
- Crown Bank (Edina, MN)
- Dundee Bank (Omaha, NE)
- Asian Bank (Philadelphia, PA)
- SouthPoint Bank (Birmingham, AL)
- Falcon National Bank (St. Cloud, MN)
- American State Bank (Arp, TX), and
- Simply Bank (Dayton, TN).
More than $1 billion in assets
These ranked the highest among the largest community banks:
- State Bank of Texas (Dallas, TX)
- Cogent Bank (Orlando, FL)
- CFG Community Bank (Baltimore, MD)
- Encore Banking (Little Rock, AR)
- Poppy Bank (Santa Rosa, CA)
- MVB Bank Inc. (Fairmont, WV)
- Forbright Bank (Chevy Chase, MD)
- Bankwell Bank (New Canaan, CT)
- Woori America Bank (New York, NY), and
- Pacific National Bank (Miami, FL).
Brian researches and writes about accounts payable and CFO management trends. He was a newspaper journalist in suburban Philadelphia for nearly 20 years.
