Bankers' report card

Bank of America and First National Bank of Nevada grew their share of deposits in Washoe County in the past year, but market leader Wells Fargo Bank and the remaining two banks in the top five spots lost share, according to June 30 data released last week by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Though it retained its spot atop the list, Wells Fargo Bank's market share fell to 32.21 percent in 2005 from 35 percent in 2004.

It still maintains a sizeable lead over Bank of America, which is in second place.Wells Fargo's deposits rose to $2.09 billion on June 30 from $1.98 billion a year earlier.

The drop in Wells Fargo Bank's market share is "quite substantial," said Gilbert Coleman, Ph.D., a Reno-based economic consultant.

"Given the size of the market, from Wells Fargo's point of view the question now is: Is this market large enough that they want to aggressively try to gain that business back, meaning that they have to alter some of their overall policy.

The answer to that question right now is probably a 'No,'" Coleman said.

Chad Osorno,Wells Fargo's senior vice president for northern Nevada, doesn't believe the bank lost market share.

"Actually we have increased market share.

The growth of our business in terms of all of our financial products to our customer, by every measure from number of checking accounts to households to growth in business lending to growth in products sold per house- hold continues to indicate we are growing by leaps and bounds," he said.

Many banks discount the picture painted by FDIC's annual report of market share, saying it does not account for the entire range of financial products and services banks offer.

The number of checking accounts at Wells Fargo, for instance, grew by 6 percent to 180,000 in the last year, the number of households that are customers of the bank grew by 4 percent to almost 132,000, and the bank provides almost five products per household, said Osorno.

The other two banks in the top five which saw their share of the market dip include Nevada State Bank and U.S.

Bank.

Nevada State Bank's market share slipped from 9.98 percent to 8.83 percent and U.S.

Bank's dropped from 9.53 percent to 8.70 percent.

"There is no way to disagree with these numbers," said Bill Martin of Las Vegas-based Nevada State Bank."We are just flat in our growth up there.

Probably the biggest toll for us has been taken by all the new independent banks that opened.

Individually they don't have a whole lot but collectively you look at what they have done in the last year, and they have grown quite a bit."

The bank is looking at sites for additional branches in northern Nevada,Martin added.

First National Bank of Nevada's share rose the fastest up by 1.32 percent to 8.06 percent with nearly $5.25 billion in deposits.

Bank of America's market share on June 30 rose to 19.53 percent with nearly $2.10 billion in local deposits, an increase of 1.16 percent in the 12-month period.

Bank of America opened a couple of branches in Reno and an expansion always helps to crack new businesses, said Coleman.

"And I think they may have been responding better to what the smaller banks are doing than what Wells Fargo has," he said.

The smaller community banks delivered focused customer service in a bid to increase their market share.

First Independent Bank of Nevada, whose share of the market rose by 83 basis points, for example, provides free courier service to pick up deposits from small business customers, said Jim De Volld, its president.

Oakland, Calif.-based World Savings Bank made it into the top 10, coming in at ninth place with 2.76 percent of the market on June 30, up from its previous ranking of 13th a year ago when it had a 1.47 percent of the market.

Other banks which gained a bigger piece of the market are Heritage Bank of Nevada, whose share jumped 41 basis points.Northern Nevada Bank and Sun West Bank both saw increases of 10 basis points.

Citibank West,Nevada Security Bank, Bank of the West and Colonial Bank were among those which also lost market share.

In the Carson City metropolitan area almost all banks have lost market share, except Imperial Capital Bank, Irwin Union Bank & Trust and Northern Nevada Bank.

With 16.13 percent of the market, Imperial Capital Bank, based in San Diego, Calif.,made the biggest upward leap, going up 11 positions to second.

Irwin Union Bank had a modest increase of 17 basis points to 6.06 at June 30.

Wells Fargo Bank's share of the Carson City market fell to 18.4 percent this year from 22.23 percent a year ago.

Others losing more than a percentage point of market share included Citibank West, which saw its share dip to 7.94 percent from 10.62 percent.

U.S.

Bank, which dropped to 7.51 from 8.99 percent, First National Bank of Nevada, which slipped to 5.10 percent from 6.66 percent and Bank of the West, which declined to 3.93 percent from 5.44 percent.

Coleman attributes the declines to the existence of Greater Nevada Credit Union.

"It's a company town and the company is the government," says Coleman."Greater Nevada Credit Union has aggressively marketed itself."