Better Business Building

Tom Broughton is a banker unlike any other. For starters, bankers at his bank, ServisFirst make house calls. That’s right. They come to you.

Their entire premise is based upon providing banking services and experience designed completely around the small-business owner. What a concept.

More from the CNN story:

For all its down-home attitude, ServisFirst offers customers lots of technology. One of the most popular services is remote deposit, which lets customers submit checks without running to the bank. Customers scan checks into terminals in their shops or offices and then send them electronically to the bank, where the money is credited to the customers’ accounts. Fees for the service are high - $300 a month for the average user - but the service eliminates time-consuming trips to the bank with sacks of checks.

Broughton gives his bankers broad latitude in making loans of as much as $500,000. ServisFirst’s median loan is $700,000, and its biggest loan to date was $14 million. There’s no loan committee, no computer program to evaluate applications - in fact, no applications. Business owners are required to submit only their company’s financials.

“A good banker doesn’t sit at his desk waiting for the computer to decide whether to make a loan,” Broughton says. “Your banker should know your story, and he’s the one who makes the case for your loan - to me.”

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