Banking On Character

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These days, most of us don't think of bankers as our friends. With sub-prime mortgage meltdowns fueling fear in financial markets around the world, and foreclosures and bankruptcies on many minds, there are plenty of images of bankers in the popular psyche -- few are pleasant.

So, as a business person, which bank should you use. Is there any difference among them, anyway?

At first blush, it might seem that the big money-center banks that blanket our region with branches and ATM machines are the right choice. Bank of America. Wells Fargo. Citibank. US Bank. After all, they provide convenience and there's security in numbers. Their advertising is ubiquitous, and seductive, and their histories in the region long and storied.

But, their very size makes it hard to imagine them involved in the day-to-day financial details that make up most businesses: cash flow, receivables, payroll, bad checks. And then there's the customer service and the relationship. Are these large institutions able to provide the kinds of financial consultants to whom you'd feel most comfortable sharing the intimate details of your hopes and fears?  

What about smaller banks, the next tier of regional institutions headquartered in the Central Valley? Are they ready to be the financial consultants most small- to mid-sized businesses need? To find out, I walked down Main Street throughout the region and called on the CEOs of the biggest regional banks in our area. I asked each to tell us why a business customer would choose her or his bank, and what made each bank different -- and better -- than all the competitors that are crowding the market.

At first, they all said similar things, pabulum about service, and customer care, and their "people." But something else became clear as I made the rounds and talked to each chief executive: Each of these local banks has a different set of core customers, a different approach to banking, and a different appeal rooted, to some degree, in the personalities of their leaders. They might all be bankers, but they are very different. Read on to learn about the character of each leader and how each bank describes its niche.

American River Bank

"I tell everyone who works here that unless we have the day-to-day business accounts, the basic business banking for every one of our clients, we don't have much of anything," says David Taber, the CEO of American River Bankshares (AMRB, Nasdaq), the publicly traded Rancho Cordova holding company that owns American River Bank. The company operates American River Bank with six branches in the region, and Bank of Amador and North Coast Bank, each of which has three branches in Amador and Sonoma counties, respectively.

In a world of hyper competition for financial services -- "within a mile of our branch in Roseville there are 77 financial institutions offering competitive products" says Taber -- and an internet filled with more options, it's easy to think that the business of banking is all about shaving a quarter percentage point off an interest rate. This is not how the American Bankshares CEO sees his business. "Every banker now wants to talk about being a business bank," Taber continues, "especially when they have a lot of real-estate loans on the books in California. But it is not as easy as it looks."

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