Bank of Arkansas Makes Private Banking a Priority

Jeff Dunn, president and CEO of Bank of Arkansas N.A., sounded like a determined sports manager in December when he vowed the bank would build its personal financial services business in 2003. On Jan. 24, he made Jeffrey Cude his No. 1 draft pick.

“What we needed was a big hitter who had already been doing private banking [PFS] and who did it well,” Dunn said. “It was obvious Cude was the way we needed to go.”

Cude, a Conway native and 1989 graduate of the University of Arkansas, has 13 years in banking including the last decade in Northwest Arkansas. Except for one 14-month stint, Cude has spent his career with the Worthen-Boatman’s-NationsBank-Bank of America Corp. chain that saw so many ownership changes during the 1990s. His new title is senior vice president of PFS.

A niche bank focused on mid- to high-end commercial clients, Bank of Arkansas is vying to compete in the high-touch PFS market with financial big boys such as Bank of America and Arvest Bank Group Inc. Dunn’s bank, with about $133 million in deposits, by itself fits the mold of a local, community-oriented bank.

But it’s publicly traded holding company, BOK Financial Inc., is a $12 billion parent with another $20 billion in trust services assets. That enables Bank of Arkansas to compete in investment management and trust, retirement and brokerage services as well as treasury services and international offerings.

“I wanted to move into an organization that had some of the same capacity and resources I was familiar with but that could offer a more personalized delivery because we’re not so big,” Cude said.