Banks, Branches In Transition Mode

After two years of little to no bank branch activity in Northwest Arkansas, there’s suddenly some hustle and bustle:

• Great Southern Bank of Reed Springs, Mo., which has operated a loan production office in Northwest Arkansas for several years, has recently opened a full-service branch at the former location of a Chambers Bank in the Pinnacle Hills area of Rogers.
• Faytteville’s Signature Bank of Arkansas may be selling two of its Benton County offices to Calhoun County Bank of Hampton, pending approval from the Arkansas State Bank Department.
• Signature also is closing its Bella Vista office at the end of the summer, which had deposits of $22.5 million as of June 30, 2009, the most recent data available.

According to the FDIC, Great Southern Bank now has 84 offices in five states with a total of $3.69 billion in assets. First quarter net income was $5.78 million.

Signature had March 31 assets of $665.1 million, down almost 7 percent from the end of 2009 and its first quarter net income was a loss of $3.4 million.

If approved, Calhoun County Bank will be the 31st full-service bank doing business in Benton and Washington counties, a new high for the Northwest Arkansas market that many bankers have said is already oversaturated.

As of June 30, 2009, there were 203 banking offices in the two-county area, up from 159 in 2005.

Tim Yeager, associate professor of finance at the University of Arkansas said, “One thing that’s clear is that we have plenty of competition and the competition is forcing banks to take more risks.”

But banks are also gun-shy, he said, and that is cutting into profits. That will likely be the case for the next couple of years, he said.