Summit Bank of Eugene opened its Bend office in 2015 to fill a void it sees in community banking created by bank failures and acquisitions since the recession. Now with major mergers underway in each of its markets, Summit is looking to capitalize once again on market disruption.

“We feel like there’s a tremendous amount of growth in both markets and potential for growth in both markets,” CEO Craig Wanichek said during a recent visit to Bend.

Summit hopes to raise $5 million by issuing new stock to fund its expansion. Most of the new capital will go toward loan-making, Wanichek said. Summit has grown total loans by more than 20 percent for the past four years in a row, he said. The bank has not yet priced the stock offering. Summit is traded via the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board under the ticker SBKO.

While regional players like Bend-based Bank of the Cascades, which plans to merge with First Interstate Bank, based in Billings, Montana, talk up the advantages of a larger organization, Summit Bank executives boast about its diminutive size. Once the Bank of Cascades merger is complete, Summit, which has $252 million in assets, will be about 30 times smaller than its next-largest competitor, Columbia Bank, which has about $9 billion in assets, said Gary O’Connell, Summit’s Central Oregon president.

Community banks have traditionally been defined as those with assets under $1 billion, but the category can include larger banks that have a limited geographic scope, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Summit is not the only community bank looking to take advantage of the Bank of the Cascades merger. Bend-based High Desert Bank, which is even smaller with $26 million in assets, recently cleaned up the last of its troubled loans and started to chart a growth strategy, CEO Steve Ferber said.

Bank of the Cascades’ merger will create opportunities for those banks that are focused on Central Oregon, Ferber said. “The market’s really strong. We want to capitalize on it.”

Like most community banks, Summit focuses on commercial lending and business services. Summit’s growth in Central Oregon has come almost entirely through referrals in the business community, O’Connell said. Summit hopes to have gained more Central Oregon clout with the addition of three high-profile board members: ophthalmic surgeon Patricia Buehler; Bigfoot Beverages Co-President Andy Moore and G5 CEO Dan Hobin.

Summit is small enough that customers are greeted by first name when they walk into the lone Central Oregon office, which is on SW Columbia Street, O’Connell said. If one of the front-line staff members can’t answer a phone, someone else will pick up, he said.

“There’s no ‘them’ or backroom here,” O’Connell said. “We all wear many hats.”

Summit keeps costs down by relying on technology, he said. Summit offers mobile-phone based banking. Instead of building its own ATMs, it offers free ATM use across a national network. The bank’s staff will help customers install a mobile phone app that can use dashboard GPS to find the nearest free ATM, he said.

Offering a limited menu of services also contains costs, O’Connell said. Summit doesn’t do mortgages and rarely makes a vehicle loan.

“We’ve made a decision to be in lines of business that are important to the economic development of the community,” O’Connell said.

Most of Oregon’s community banks focus on small business, though each one has a slightly different business model, said Linda Navarro, executive director of the Oregon Bankers Association. With Oregon’s rapid economic growth, many areas of the state could use more community banks, Navarro said.

Several community banks that were based in Central Oregon or had a presence here have failed or been acquired by larger banks since the recession.

Prineville-based Community First Bank and LibertyBank, based in Eugene, failed in 2009 and 2010, respectively, and both banks’ assets were acquired by Home Federal Bank of Idaho. Then in 2014 Bank of the Cascades bought Home Federal.

Columbia River Bank of The Dalles failed and was sold to Columbia Bank of Tacoma, Washington. South Valley Bank and Trust of Klamath Falls were acquired by Washington Federal of Seattle.

— Reporter: 541-617-7860, kmclaughlin@bendbulletin.com