Commerce ranks second among 150 top banks

Kansas City-based Commerce Bancshares, the holding company of Commerce Bank, ranked second on Bank Director magazine’s list of 150 top-performing banks.

The ranking, released in the publication’s fourth-quarter 2006 issue, measures institutions’ profitability, capital adequacy and asset quality between July 2005 and July 2006. Scores in those categories were based on a bank’s return on average assets, return on average equity, tier-1 capital ratio, leverage ratio, nonperforming asset ratio and reserve coverage.

Commerce Bancshares is a $15.2 billion bank holding company with about 360 locations in Missouri, Illinois and Kansas.

“Commerce is a careful lender with relatively little appetite for excessive credit risk,” the article says. “In recent years, the bank has also grown its payments systems business – including a variety of credit, debit and corporate purchase cards – and the resulting fee-based revenue has helped boost its profitability despite the effects of a flat yield curve.”

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