Florida Banks: Where Should I Put My Money? By Geniusofdespair

Let’s assume I have $100,000 and I want to put it in a Florida Bank. Which one should I choose? Toasters and other products to lure you in don't impress me.

First, I looked at Bauer Financial. They analyze bank financial data.

They rate on various criteria that will make your head spin but I was able to pick out a bank comparing a lot of their data for my imaginary $100,000. First:

Although the Community Bank of Broward has a good rating overall, I don’t think there are enough branches for me to bank there. So, I did want a bank with branches.

Second I looked at Bauer’s star rating*. I wanted a bank with 4 stars if possible (5 is their top).

I looked at a bank I probably won’t use, Ocean Bank. It has “0” stars and this bank’s “nonperforming loans as a percentage of Gross Loans” is at 21.1% (we will call this “A”)”. “A” should be 1% or less. Ocean Bank had the highest number of any bank.

I then looked at the “Coverage ratio as a percentage of nonperforming loans.” This is “a ratio of the allowance for loan losses divided by total nonperforming loans” (we will call this “B”). The optimum number, conservative ratio, is 100% for “B”. Ocean Bank has 20.6%. The worst bank in this category is Turnberry Bank with 9%. However, Turnberry bank has 3 stars from Bauer so go figure. That is why I looked at a few numbers and not just the star.

Crunching all the numbers, I picked out Northern Trust N.A. as my bank for my non-existent money. Their star rating is 4. “A” is at .2% and “B” is at 231.8%. Someone told me Northern is known as the "Rich People's Bank."

There is a high minimum balance at Northern Trust N.A. They wouldn’t tell me what it was over the phone but when I read $100,000 from my article, they said that would qualify. You get a personal banker there. They have a few branches in Miami. I heard they gave you coffee, pedicures, etc. but apparently the person I spoke to said that wasn’t true. Bummer.

Besides Ocean, here are other zero star rated banks in the Miami area: Bank United FSB, Premier American Bank, Republic Federal Bank N.A.

Five star rated banks in the Miami area: City National Bank of Florida, First Bank of Miami, First Nation Bank of South Miami, Intercontinental Bank.

*Bauer Financial Star Rating: In addition to the capital ratio, other criteria are used to determine the BauerFinancial™ Star-Rating. Some of these include but are not limited to: profitability/loss trend, evaluating the level of delinquent loans, chargeoffs and repossessed assets, the market versus book value of the investment portfolio, regulatory supervisory agreements, the community reinvestment rating (CRA), historical data and liquidity.

Five stars is “Superior” and Four stars is "Excellent". One star is “Troubled.” No stars: Bauer says, “Our lowest star rating.”