Arvest Bank of Fayetteville.
Bank deposits in Arkansas declined by about a half-percent in the 12 months that ended June 30, according to the annual summary of deposits released Monday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Total deposits statewide dropped back to $53.1 billion, down $267.6 million in a year.
It would be easy to say that Arvest Bank of Fayetteville, the state’s largest bank, accounted for most of the decline, since its in-state deposits dropped by $245.4 million to $6.2 billion, a drop of almost four percent. But declining deposits weren’t unusual among the larger banks doing business in Arkansas.
The FDIC’s summary of deposits is an accounting taken at midyear by the government agency that insures bank deposits. It is not a holistic report card on the health of a bank or of the banking industry, but it is the only official report that provides Arkansas-specific trend data for multistate banks like Arvest, Regions Bank and Bank of America.
Jason Kincy, spokesman for Arvest, discouraged reading too much into the summary of deposits.
“As you may know, these deposit figures are a snapshot in time of a bank’s deposits and there can be fluctuations in the amount of deposits on any particular given day based on what’s coming in or out of the bank at the time the numbers are totaled,” Kincy said in an email.
Half — 49.5 percent — of the state’s bank deposits were held by the 10 largest banks in the state. Here’s a rundown of deposit trends among the rest of the top-10 banks:
- Regions Bank of Birmingham, Ala., also lost deposits. Its total of $4.19 billion in Arkansas deposits represented a decline of 2 percent since the midpoint of 2012.
- First Security Bank of Searcy increased its deposits by $81.5 million, a bump of 2.5 percent, to $3.33 billion. Reynie Rutledge’s bank now controls 6.28 percent of Arkansas bank deposits.
- Bank of America of Charlotte, N.C., saw its Arkansas deposits decline by almost 5 percent to $2.98 billion. That followed a decline of 6.5 percent the previous year.
- Liberty Bank of Arkansas, the Jonesboro bank that will be acquired by Centennial Bank of Conway later this year, added $55.8 million in deposits, an improvement of 2.6 percent that brought its total to 2.2 billion. That followed an increase of 6.8 percent the previous year.
- BancorpSouth Bank of Tupelo, Miss., took the No. 6 spot away from Centennial despite a tiny decline (0.2 percent) in total Arkansas deposits, which stood at $1.73 billion as of June 30.
- Bank of the Ozarks of Little Rock also moved ahead of Centennial by adding $76.3 million in deposits in Arkansas, an increase of 4.8 percent that brought its total to $1.66 billion. BOZ’s deposits grew even more — by almost $106 million — outside the state. Bank of the Ozarks’ out-of-state deposits totaled $1.34 billion.
- Centennial, then, dropped to No. 8 when ranked by Arkansas deposits, thanks to a decline of 7.4 percent in in-state deposits. For the first time, Centennial’s out-of-state deposits, $1.73 billion, surpassed its Arkansas deposits, $1.63 billion.
- Deposits at Simmons First National Bank’s Arkansas branched declined by $41.2 million, a 3 percent drop to $1.29 billion. Simmons First National Corp. of Pine Bluff has seven other bank charters in Arkansas, and the holding company’s total deposits of $2.52 billion represented a decline of less than 2 percent from the previous year. Simmons stands to add $862.5 billion in deposits later this year when it acquires Metropolitan National Bank of Little Rock, the 14th-largest bank when ranked by deposits, but deposit runoff after a bank merger is typical.
- IberiaBank of Lafayette, La., added $117.7 million in deposits to bring its Arkansas deposits to $1.1 billion, breaking the billion-dollar mark for the first time. That represents just over 2 percent of the statewide deposits.
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