Ozarks Plans Plenty Branches

“Bentonville will not be the last,” Edwards said about BOZ’s choice to build in Wal-Mart’s backyard rather than in the super-hot Pinnacle Point area of Rogers or on Joyce Boulevard in Fayetteville.

Siloam Springs-chartered Liberty Bank of Arkansas recently applied for a branch location at S.W. 28th Street and Walton Boulevard in Bentonville. If approved, it will be the bank’s sixth area location.

As of June 30, there were 19 banks doing business in Benton and Washington counties, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., with a total of 149 branch offices. But two banks — Pinnacle Bank of Bentonville and Parkway Bank of Rogers — have opened since, bringing the total to 21 unique banking institutions.

Legacy National Bank has received conditional approval from the Comptroller of the Currency and Signature Bank of Arkansas has received a thumbs-up from the ASBD. So each is in the final stages of organizing and prep for final exams, and each could be open by the end of the first quarter. Both plan to operate multiple branches within a year of their first opening.

BancorpSouth Bank of Tupelo, Miss., a Fort Smith market mover, has said it’s looking at the two-county area. Little Rock’s Metropolitan National Bank (see story, p. 14) also plans to build in the area this year.

BOZ had assets of $1.62 billion as of Sept. 30, according to the FDIC, up 29.6 percent from $1.25 billion a year earlier.