The 20 top-performing publicly traded banks with under $2B of assets

Each year, American Banker publishes a list of the top-performing publicly traded banks with under $2 billion of assets using data compiled by the consulting firm Capital Performance Group. These banks usually best their colleagues in a variety of financial metrics, such as loan growth, revenue and efficiency.

This year, Capital Performance Group and American Banker decided to trim the list from 200 top performers to 100 banks due to consolidation and the shrinking number of institutions in this asset class. This change better represents the top quartile of banks with under $2 billion of assets.

Capital Performance Group completes the ranking using data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, which uses Security and Exchange Commission filings. (Click here for a full methodology.) 

The ranking is based on data from year-end 2023 and uses the institutions' three-year average return on average equity, or ROAE, to determine the ranking. 

For 2024, FFB Bancorp topped the list, moving up from its ranking of No. 4 last year. The Fresno, California-based institution's three-year average ROAE was 29.7%, roughly double the median of 14.87% for the top 100. For all publicly traded banks with under $2 billion of assets, the median three-year average ROAE was 10.91%. 

However, this year's publicly traded smaller banks had worse results in a number of key metrics compared with 2022. For instance, the top-100 banks posted median net revenue growth of 6.51%, while all banks in this tier recorded growth of just under 3% for year-end 2023.

This was down significantly from the year-end 2022 data. Revenue growth for the top banks for last year's list was recorded as more than 12% while all small banks increased revenue by more than 7% in 2022. 

Banks also struggled with their deposit base shrinking. For publicly traded banks with less than $2 billion of assets, core deposits dropped by more than 8% at year-end 2023, though for the top-100 banks the median decline was just 7.21%. In contrast, these smaller banks actually recorded gains in their core deposits last year.

Please read on for an overview of the top-20 institution's from this year's ranking. For a complete list of the top 100, please visit here.