Mountain West Earns Top Ranking For Sba, Home Loans

Mountain West Bank has balanced its position as North Idaho’s top Small Business Administration lender with a first-place finish in residential loans for November.

The 4-year-old independent bank was Kootenai County’s No. 1 residential lender for the month, with $5.4 million in home loans.

“We’re not No. 1 every month, but we’ve been there several times in 1997 and we’re always in the top tier,” said Mountain West Bank President Jon Hippler. He said the bank has done $38 million in residential loans for the first eight months of the current fiscal year.

At the same time, Mountain West was North Idaho’s most prolific SBA lender for the most recent financial reporting period.

With 25 small business loans valued at $4.1 million, Mountain West competed well against much larger banks. The Spokane SBA office ranked the bank right behind Washington Trust Bank and Pioneer National Bank for the number of contracts written in the area.

Hippler said the bank is now in “a comfortable area” for business loan volume - a profit center that has grown nonstop since it added a small-business lending department a year ago.

Commercial loan activity has covered a cross-section of start-up firms, small businesses changing hands and those looking for expansion capital.

“By definition, we’re not going to chase large corporations,” Hippler said. “They have needs we’re not well-positioned to serve, and we’re not going to set ourselves up to fail.”

By “triangulating” the Kootenai County market with branches in Coeur d’Alene, Hayden and Post Falls, Mountain West has developed a target market of what Hippler described as “mid- to upper-income consumers, small business owners and professionals.”

On all three counts, more business has come to Mountain West with each new announcement that one bank has swallowed another.

“There’s no doubt that in the last year or so, we’ve enjoyed good growth from the mega-mergers that have gone on,” Hippler said. “I don’t want to criticize my big brothers, but they’ve concentrated very heavily on making shareholders happy. In doing so, they created our niche. In a way, I’m sitting here with a job because of them.”

Mountain West has maintained record performance throughout the fiscal year that began April 1, with 26 percent growth in total assets, from $44 million to $60 million, and a 20 percent increase in deposits, from $38 million to $52 million.

, DataTimes