Flatirons revels in its role as local bank

As national banks continue to muscle into the Boulder County market, Flatirons Bank – the last locally chartered bank in Boulder — just celebrated its 10th anniversary.

President Kyle Heckman loves to tout Flatirons’ localness. According to Heckman, Flatirons has the edge over all others, since Boulder County is the only place where the bank does business. Flatirons has offices at 1095 Canyon Blvd. in Boulder and at 522 Fourth Ave. in Longmont.

“We’re able to take a common-sense approach to unique Boulder-centric lending and opportunities without out-of-market influences,” Heckman told us. “We’re the only ones that have Boulder County as our primary trade area.

Since banks and credit unions base their strength on their personal relationships with customers, Heckman has a good point. On the other hand, we know numerous local bankers and credit union folks who have been in their industry for decades; the places they work for just aren’t locally chartered anymore.

For example, Tom Chesney, now president of AMG National Trust Bank’s office in Boulder, was founder and first president of Flatirons Bank. His office is still near Heckman’s. AMG National is based in Denver. All bank branches affiliated with FirstBank of Colorado used to be locally chartered. They were consolidated into the bank’s Lakewood office last year to help the bank become more efficient in meeting additional federal reporting requirements.

Flatirons Bank has no foreclosed or bank-owned real estate on its books, no past-due loans, and a strong net income in 2011, Heckman said. The bank listed $100 million in assets on its most recent call report, a quarterly measure of how a bank is doing that’s filed and publicly available with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The bank has 15 employees at its two locations.

Confidence improves

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo and Co. has released a new small-business index that shows that the mood is improving for small-business owners across the country. Locally, business owners also seem to have more confidence in the economy, said Bill Farrell, Boulder’s market president.

Not only are small-business owners moods improving, they’re also finding it easier to secure loans across the nation, an indicator that a four-year-long recession may be easing, according to a survey done by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and Gallup, a national polling company.

Specifically, the number of small-business owners polled who said they found it hard to obtain a loan in the last 12 months went down 3 percent in the last quarter. In addition, the number of business owners who expected to have trouble getting a loan in the next 12 months went down by 6 percent in the survey.

Results were based on a random telephone poll of 603 small business owners across the nation. It was taken in the first week of April.

Another striking piece of information from the poll: When business owners were asked about the amount of debt they carry today compared with one year ago, 32 percent said they’re carrying less debt. Of those polled, 20 percent said they’re carrying more debt, and 47 percent are carrying about the same amount of debt.

Across the nation, small businesses are seeing their financial situations improve, with fewer now expecting their company’s financial situation to be poor in the next year. Companies nationwide also said they are seeing better cash flow in the latest poll.

Locally, Farrell said, his clients are showing stronger balance sheets so far in 2012 than they did a year ago. There seems to be some sort of momentum in the local economy, as companies experience a bit of a boomerang effect as others grow around them.

“Our clients’ clients are stronger, and there’s a chain reaction that helps our clients,” Farrell said. “They need us in ways they didn’t need us last year. It’s quite remarkable.”

Boulder’s economy has remained comparatively strong in recent years, Farrell said, as the national recession hit companies and individuals across the county, and across the country. But more qualified borrowers have been asking Wells Fargo for loans this spring than in recent quarters, he said.

“We’re coming out of things,” Farrell said. “We see strong fundamentals, but there’s still a cloud over the certainty of committing until the (presidential) election is behind us.”

Wells Fargo has $1.3 trillion in assets. The bank says it has one out of every three Americans as customers. The bank also is the No. 1 small-business lender in the United States, according to federal data related to the 2010 Community Reinvestment Act.

Beth Potter can be reached at 303-630-1944 or email bpotter@bcbr.com.

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