1990s Decade Award Finalist: Liberty Bank

From a converted mobile home with six employees to 20 permanent locations throughout southwest

Missouri with almost 300 employees, Liberty Bank has come a long way since it was founded in 1995.

The bank has nearly $950 million in assets, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.

“We’ve gone from zero to almost a billion in less than 15 years,” says CEO and President Gary Metzger, of Liberty Bank’s asset growth. “We’ve had a very good reception from the marketplace and all the communities that we are in.”

The bank has carved a niche for itself by providing small businesses with the capital they need. For 12 consecutive years, Liberty Bank has been southwest Missouri’s top U.S. Small Business Administration lender.

“We are the people who help the working class folk who want to start their dream,” says Blake Thomas, chief operating officer and counsel for Liberty Bank.

In the past few years, Liberty has increased the number of SBA-backed loans it makes annually.

In 2007, the bank made 87 SBA loans worth $22.2 million, followed by 121 loans worth $29 million in 2008 and 150 loans worth $34.7 million last year.

Metzger attributes the bank’s most recent uptick in SBA lending to implementation of the American
Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, which raised the SBA loan guarantee to 90 percent and temporarily eliminated some borrower fees.

Between February 2009 and May 2010, he says, Liberty made 192 SBA loans totaling $45.7 million.

“I think that is indicative of our commitment as a banking partner to small (and) medium sized businesses because those loans don’t go to households,” he says. “Now a lot of the households have their own businesses, but that’s going to small business that employ people, that buy paper, that buy pens that keep the economy going.”

When businesses visit Liberty in pursuit of financing, Metzger says the bank focuses on the relationship rather than the transaction.

“We don’t have one thing we pull off the shelf and say ‘here,’” he says. “We specifically look at each situation and design it to hopefully meet their needs.”

The bank doesn’t just partner with businesses, though. According to previous Springfield Business Journal coverage, its home-loan division, Liberty Mortgage, does about 40 percent of its volume in government loans such as Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration mortgages, with an average loan amount of $150,000.

Metzger says providing loans to those who need them is part of the American entrepreneurial spirit.

“In every one of our locations we have in the lobby a picture framed of Lady Liberty,” Metzger says. “It’s the American dream to succeed whether it’s in your own business or for the financial safety and security of your family. We’d love to be the banking partner to assist businesses and households and families to achieve their financial security.”

Liberty Bank also is investing in its future and making sure its facilities are prepared to meet customers’ needs. Thomas says the bank is prepared this summer to sign a $5 million deal to upgrade all of its systems, technology products and services.

“That is a huge investment for a bank this size to make,” he says. “It’s one that you only do when you’re looking 10, 15 years in the future to make sure that we can beat the competition now and then remain competitive in the future.”[[In-content Ad]]