Looking at hard numbers can be meaningless, like trying to connect the St. Louis Cardinals’ post-season performance with players’ weights or beard dimensions. Factual yet irrelevant.
A better comparison might be the old yarn about several people trying to describe an elephant after each touches just one part: a trunk or tail or leg.
For the 27 commercial banks operating in Peoria County and tracked by the FDIC — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the independent government agency that protects each depositor up to at least $250,000 per insured bank — an examination of the data provides some valuable information.
The FDIC analysis released on Sept. 29 shows several facts (see chart). Morton Community Bank has the biggest market share. Looking at Total Equity Capital (Total Assets less Total Liabilities) shows JPMorgan Chase Bank to have the largest sum: $17 billion. Glasford State Bank has the smallest amount: $2.8 million. And comparing changes in reported deposits between June 30, 2013 and June 30, 2014, shows the biggest gain at First State Bank of Illinois, based in LaHarpe, in Hancock County (up 182 percent in 12 months), and the biggest decline at Illinois National Bank, based in Springfield (down 29.4 percent, year-to-year).
“The Summary of Deposits and related numbers are only one part of a bigger equation,” said financial analyst Randy Barber, director of Washington, D.C.’s Center for Economic Organizing, a labor-supported think tank. “Usually, deposits are one-third to two-thirds of a bank’s total assets. Other factors include short-term borrowing, long-term borrowing, borrowing from other financial institutions, from banks to insurance companies, whether notes or bonds.
“The FDIC material is a very important piece, but not everything,” continued Barber, co-author of The North Will Rise Again: Pensions, Politics and Power in the 1980s. “It doesn’t necessarily tell you what banks are DOING with those deposits.”
The significance of the numbers can be difficult for consumers to gauge, especially when banks can use creative accounting to frame their financials, said banking consultant Frank Russell, a former Bank of America economist.
“The only metric banks focus on for quarterly reporting is net interest income (NII),” Russell told the Community Word. “They will actively manage deposits (for example, change yields) down to the branch level in order to manipulate NII. Inside the industry, it is called ‘window dressing.’
“Therefore, through the NII prism, the answer to whether growth or declines in deposits is an indication of more saving by depositors, less lending by banks, or additional investment income by banks, can be ‘yes’ or ‘no.’
“Incidentally,” Russell added, “All of this is legal.”
Such a glimpse isn’t worthless, Barber said.
“It offers laypeople at least SOME sense of the level of activity at banks,” Barber said. “It’s a bellwether that pictures what dynamics are growing and shrinking.
“There’s legitimate criticism that some banks merely chase the highest yield, which sometimes does not serve the community [but many] local banks aren’t really local anymore.”
If there’s a bottom line for consumers to determine the best banks for them, Barber continued, it’s “the final relationship: People who need money dealing with people who have money.”

Snapshot of Peoria banks’ deposits, condition

Commercial banks operating in Peoria County and their deposits within the Metropolitan Statistical Area, followed by the 12-month percentage change, their current company-wide Total Equity Capital (Total Assets minus Total Liabilities), and their current Peoria market share, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in its report released Sept. 29.
Company (HQ) 6-30-2013 6-30-2014 Pct. Capital Mkt Share
Associated Bank, National Association (Green Bay, Wis.) Totals for 4 offices $260,924,000 206,513,000 -20.8 3,136,538,000 3.00
Better Banks (Peoria) 4 offices 203,582,000 211,243,000 +3.7 18,348,000 3.07
Brimfield Bank (Brimfield) 1 office 40,882,000 40,729,000 -0.3 4,856,000 0.59
Busey Bank (Champaign) 4 offices 108,473,000 117,362,000 +8.1 418,700,000 1.71
CIBM Bank (Champaign) 1 office 25,631,000 26,467,000 +3.2 58,232,000 0.39
Commerce Bank (Kansas City, Mo.) 4 offices 430,425,000 469,770,000 +9.1 2,047,669,000 6.83
Farmers & Mechanics Bank (Galesburg) 1 office 7,688,000 7,935,000 +3.2 36,783,000 0.12
Farmers State Bank (Elmwood) 1 office 49,747,000 50,668,000 +1.8 5,385,000 0.74
First Mid-Illinois Bank & Trust, National Association (Mattoon) 4 offices 106,341,000 97,206,000 -8.5 171,170,000 1.41
First National Bank of Chillicothe (Chillicothe) 1 office 60,209,000 59,128,000 -1.7 6,608,000 0.86
First State Bank of Forrest (Forrest, Ill.) 1 office 33,190,000 40,628,000 +22.4 13,667,000 0.59
First State Bank of Illinois (LaHarpe, Ill.) 1 office 6,790,000 19,187,000 +182 34,060,000 0.28
Glasford State Bank (Glasford) 2 offices 31,633,000 31,758,000 +0.3 2,884,000 0.46
Heartland Bank and Trust Company (Bloomington) 4 offices 525,408,000 536,110,000 +2.0 299,206,000 7.80
Herget Bank, National Association (Pekin) 1 office 234,241,000 242,275,000 +3.4 29,698,000 3.52
Heritage Bank of Central Illinois (Trivoli, Ill.) 5 offices 228,644,000 210,975,000 -7.7 28,957,000 3.07
Illinois National Bank (Springfield) 1 office 53,070,000 37,423,000 -29.4 60,867,000 0.54
JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association (Columbus, Ohio) 5 offices 233,487,000 234,536,000 +0.4 179,820,000,000 3.41
Marshall County State Bank (Varna, Ill.) 1 office 28,090,000 25,413,000 -9.5 2,607,000 0.37
Morton Community Bank (Morton) 5 offices 1,806,691,000 1,956,486,000 +8.2 335,356,000 28.46
PNC Bank, National Association (Wilmington, Del.) 8 offices 637,993,000 653,758,000 +2.4 39,439,789,000 9.51
Princeville State Bank (Princeville) 2 offices 58,050,000 58,355,000 +0.5 7,004,000 0.85
Regions Bank (Birmingham, Ala.) 2 offices 82,599,000 84,860,000 +2.7 16,265,498,000 1.23
South Side Trust & Savings Bank of Peoria (Peoria) 10 offices 533,390,000 528,800,000 -0.8 77,611,000 7.69
Soy Capital Bank and Trust Company (Decatur) 1 office 10,463,000 12,600,000 +20.4 61,586,000 0.18
State Bank of Speer (Speer) 1 office 155,684,000 149,823,000 -3.7 16,584,000 2.18
Woodforest National Bank (The Woodlands, Texas) 1 office 3,383,000 3,763,000 +11.2 375,019,000 0.05

Peoria County totals: 6-30-2013 6-30-2014
27 banks/76 offices: $6,719,888,000 $6,873,760,000
SOURCE: FDIC