Is there a future for community banks?

From 2008 through today, regulators closed 22 Southwest Florida community banks. These banks only include those headquartered in the counties served by the Gulf Coast Business Review. Add banks headquartered elsewhere with offices in this geographic area, and the number is much higher. Considered to be one of the centers of the banking crisis, the Sarasota/Manatee area saw nine local community banks and an additional six with offices in these two counties closed and passed on to healthier institutions at considerable cost to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fund.

In general, the immediate impact of the nine Sarasota/Manatee bank failures includes well over $100 million in losses of investment capital, more than 100 bank directors and CEOs subject to potential liability, and scores of local jobs eliminated through consolidation of services and branch closings. The ripple effect was of course much greater.

While it is too early to say a recovery is under way, conditions have improved during the past year. Surveying the number of banking choices in the Sarasota/Manatee area reveals customers have fewer choices than at any time in nearly 20 years.