By CHUCK STINNETT, Evansville Courier Press, Sunday, October 29, 2006

The loss of the city of Henderson as a customer was the reason for that, OV President Jerry Wischer said. The bank held the city's accounts for two years but declined to renew under the terms of that contract. When the city sought new bids late last summer, Independence Bank submitted the successful bid, resulting in several million dollars being transferred from OV.

Meanwhile, local deposits at No. 2 Fifth Third Bank surged by $23 million — a nearly 19 percent increase — to pull within $3 million of OV Bank.

That's the closest the two have been since OV Bank became the Henderson County market leader in 2002.

Doug Bell, Fifth Third's vice president, retail regional manager and city executive for the Henderson branches, cited a pair of initiatives for driving deposit growth, including offering higher interest rates.

"We did away with our introductory rates on deposit products and adopted an 'everyday great rate' strategy to be more competitive in the market," Bell said.

Fifth Third also "had a big internal push to improve customer service" in its offices with a goal of "not just good service but best-of-class service," he said.

Old National Bank's local deposits declined for the fourth straight year, though it remained the third-largest holder of deposits here and the largest in the Tri-county.  It was followed by Independence Bank, Henderson National Bank, US Bank and the Integra Bank.   Fifth Third and Independence Bank posted the two biggest increases in deposits here, while Old National and OV Bank had the largest declines.

The smallest bank here in local deposits, the 2-year-old Integra Bank branch, posted the greatest rate of growth, more than doubling its deposits.  Only once before had the mid-year deposit levels at banks in Henderson topped the half-billion-dollar mark. That was in 2002, and rates on certificates of deposit were a factor.

Nationally, CD rates had been attractive at the beginning of the decade, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.  Bank customers here responded. At OV Bank, for example, interest-bearing deposits jumped 25 percent from the end of 1999 to mid-2002.

By 2002, however, CD rates had dropped precipitously — to barely 1 percent — and some consumers didn't renew their CDs. By mid-2004, insured bank deposits in Henderson County had dropped by $20 million.  But rates have rebounded, with some banks advertising CD rates of greater than 5 percent recently.  Those higher CD rates lured investors back. Local deposits have surged $25.2 million, or 5 percent, from a year ago.  The FDIC releases its Summary of Deposit data only once per year, always using June 30 data that banks report to it.