Banks fare well in 'Top 150'

Feats such as that earned Commerce Bancshares Inc. the No. 6 slot on Bank Director magazine's inaugural Bank Performance Scorecard: The Top 150. Kansas City-based Commerce Bancshares is the holding company for Commerce Bank, which operates 25 branches in the Springfield area.

“I'm very proud of that (ranking),” said Bob Hammerschmidt, president of Commerce Bank's Springfield Region.

Hammerschmidt, who has been with Commerce Bank for 18 of his 32 years in banking, called the honor a “snapshot in time” that allows all Commerce Bank employees the opportunity to reflect on their accomplishments in the ever-changing financial world.

U.S. Bancorp (No. 14), Bank of America Corp. (No. 65) and Kansas City-based UMB Financial Corp. (No. 96) were other institutions with a heavy local presence that made the list.

Jack Milligan, Bank Director magazine senior editor, said the list is unique because it uses a wider array of judging criteria than most rankings do.

“It measures a bank's financial performance within a larger context than if you were to focus on a single metric, as many people do,” he said.

The magazine's list was compiled using six metrics that pulled financials from the last two quarters of 2004 and the first two quarters of 2005.

Three main categories - profitability, capital adequacy and asset quality - were judged.

Hammerschmidt said Commerce Bank's high rate of employee ownership - 90 percent of employees own company stock - and conservative approach to leveraging its assets fueled its recent growth.

Michael Homeyer, senior vice president of Bank of America in Springfield, said Springfield played an important role in earning his national bank a 19 percent increase in net income in 2005 and a spot on the Bank Director magazine's list.

“I think our overall performance is reflective of those businesses and those teams in each market performing well,” Homeyer said.

Ann Marie Baker, local UMB Bank president, said a 48 percent jump in Springfield market deposits helped fuel her company's 31.5 percent earnings growth in 2005.

“We had tremendous growth in our Springfield market in 2005,” she said.

Commerce's Hammerschmidt said about 10 percent of Commerce Bank's $14.1 billion in assets are generated from its southwest Missouri branches.

“Our region has significantly outperformed the company for the last three years,” he said.

Commerce Bank has 186 branches in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois, but Hammerschmidt said company officials are interested in expanding into northwest Arkansas and northeast Oklahoma.

Locally, Commerce Bank's next move will come in spring 2007 when it's slated to open its seventh Springfield location. The branch will be in Ironbridge Village on South National Avenue near Weaver Road.

Local market, national growth

Several banking institutions that operate in the Springfield area made Bank Director magazine's list of the Top 150 publicly traded banks:

No. 6 CommerceBancshares Inc.

No. 14 U.S. Bancorp

No. 65 Bank ofAmerica Corp.

No. 96 UMBFinancial Corp.