I sprang for Veribanc's list of blue ribbon banks--those banks that meet their highest quality standards on variables like capitalization, profitability, reserves, and that sort of thing.
The reports are organized according to geographical region, with a huge chunk of the northwestern USA lumped together. MOST OF THE BLUE-RIBBON BANKS ARE SMALL BANKS IN MONTANA.
Only 2 local to me, and they both look suspiciously like Chinese merchant banks. I was surprised to find that one of them actually has a few branches. The closest one to me is in Chinatown.
One bank that is a little more mainstream and actually has a branch in my neighborhood (a long walk) made the "green" list, one step below the blue list. So, it's decision time.
That's it. 3 local banks that are reasonably healthy.
I suppose that this is not too surprising. Most of the banks in the city are branches of huge interstate holding companies. Big, ossified, poorly run, and heavily into the toxic alphabet soup and various derivatives.
