One Oregon Lender Makes List of Top 200 Community Banks

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Cornelius Swart, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Photo Credit: LakeWentworth, cc

Only one lender from Oregon made it onto a list of the top 200 community banks in the nation, according to a report by the American Banker.

With a market value of $13.4 million, Centerpointe Community Bank of Hood River ranked 27th.

The banks in the top 200 were ranked based on their average return on equity over three years ending in 2012.

There are 46 banks in Oregon’s statewide association of independent community lenders, which includes thrifts, savings banks, trusts and other institutions. Despite that, Oregon didn’t rank well against states like Indiana, Ohio and Virginia, which have 11, 15 and 16 banks in the top 200 respectively, according to the report.

Slideshow below: States with most top-performing community banks

Overall, American Banker was not bullish on the industry of community banking.

“Profitability remains a challenge for banks and thrifts with less than $2 billion of assets,” the report states. “Larger institutions generally are doing better than their counterparts.”

Community banks in the top 200 had a median ROE of 9.58 percent, according to data from SNL Financial. That was largely the same as the 9.56 percent median of American Banker’s top 200 from last year, the article states.

On the whole, the larger institutions are doing better than their smaller counterparts. The median asset size of the top 200 was $600 million, while the average size of assets in the class was $377 million.

That said, the sector was making slow progress towards growth. The median asset size of last year's top 200 was $553 million, compared with $344 million for the group as a whole.