This page explains how every figure in the Market Intelligence resource is built: which sources are used, how geographies are defined, how each metric is calculated, and where the data should be read with caution. It is written for anyone who wants to check the work before relying on it. For how the resource may and may not be used, and the limitations that apply to it, see the terms of use and disclaimer.
Why 293 markets
A Combined Statistical Area is built from the Metropolitan Statistical Areas within it. Ranking both would count the same counties twice: San Jose and San Francisco would appear on their own and again inside the combined Bay Area market. To avoid that, the national ranking uses a non-overlapping universe:
- 181 Combined Statistical Areas. Each CSA is treated as a single market.
- 112 Metropolitan Statistical Areas that are not part of any CSA. These are included on their own because no combined market contains them.
Together these are the 293 markets in the ranking. The 1,523 counties and county equivalents with at least one FDIC-insured branch inside those markets each have their own profile page in the resource and name the market they belong to; these are the counties that receive displayed county rankings. A further 10 counties fall inside these markets but have no branch presence: they are shown with their economic figures and an explanatory note rather than a rank. This is the ranked county universe used throughout the resource: the 1,523 counties with a branch inside a Combined or Metropolitan Statistical Area.
One consequence is worth stating plainly: the markets shown with the MSA type are the 112 standalone metros, those not contained in any CSA, not the full list of U.S. metropolitan areas. An MSA that sits inside a CSA is represented through its parent market. This keeps the ranking honest but means the resource is not a complete list of every MSA.
These markets are Census-based statistical geographies. They are not the regulatory banking markets used by the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Justice, or other agencies in merger analysis, and figures here should not be read as bearing on any such review.
The resource also includes an institution page for every FDIC-insured bank with at least one branch in the covered counties. Each lists that institution's deposits county by county, ranked highest to lowest, drawn from the same June 30, 2025 Summary of Deposits data used throughout the resource and shown in nominal dollars. Directly below the bank's name, the page shows the city and state where the institution is headquartered; this comes from the FDIC's BankFind institution directory rather than the branch-level Summary of Deposits that supplies every deposit figure. Two figures on that page are specific to it, the county's share of the bank's deposits and the bank's share of that county's deposits; both are defined in the data dictionary below. Counties that fall within a covered market link to their full profile.
Sources and vintages
| Data | Source | Vintage |
|---|---|---|
| Gross domestic product | U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, CAGDP1 county real GDP | 2024, chained 2017 dollars |
| Population | U.S. Census Bureau population estimates | Vintage 2025 |
| Deposits, institution counts, concentration | FDIC Summary of Deposits | June 30, 2025 |
| Institution headquarters (city, state) | FDIC BankFind institution directory | July 31, 2026 |
| Market and county boundaries | U.S. Census Bureau CBSA/CSA delineation | July 2023 |
Anticipated updates
Each source publishes on its own schedule. The tool is updated after each release. The dates below are deliberately conservative, set roughly two months past when each release is expected, so a reader knows the point by which refreshed figures should be in place.
| Data | Next release | Refreshed in the tool by |
|---|---|---|
| Deposits | FDIC Summary of Deposits, June 30, 2026 | November 2026 |
| GDP | BEA county real GDP, 2025 | April 2027 |
| Population | U.S. Census Bureau population estimates, Vintage 2026 | May 2027 |
Institution headquarters come from the FDIC BankFind institution directory, which FDIC maintains on a rolling basis rather than releasing on a set schedule, so the table above shows a retrieval date rather than a vintage. The directory is re-pulled and refreshed once a year, alongside the annual Summary of Deposits update.
Geography, the market and county boundaries, is not on a fixed annual cycle. It changes only when the Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget revise the CBSA/CSA delineations, which happens irregularly, with the next comprehensive revision expected after the 2030 Census. Because it does not refresh on a yearly schedule, it is noted here rather than carried in the table above; if a delineation update reassigns counties between markets before then, this page is revised to reflect it.
Because GDP is a 2024 measure and population is a 2025 estimate, GDP per capita pairs two different years. It is a useful comparative ratio between markets, not a precise figure for either year on its own.
These sources are U.S. government data in the public domain, cited here to identify their origin. The Executive Recruiter Group is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or certified by the FDIC, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. Census Bureau, or any government agency.
Data dictionary
| Metric | Definition and calculation | Read with care |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 GDP | Real gross domestic product in billions of chained 2017 dollars. Market GDP is the sum of its component counties. | Chained dollars are inflation adjusted, so values are comparable across markets but are not current-dollar output. |
| 2025 Population | Census Bureau resident population estimate. Market population is the sum of its component counties. | Estimates are revised annually and are not a census count. |
| GDP per capita | Market GDP divided by market population. | Pairs 2024 output with 2025 population. Very high values often indicate production concentrated among few residents, such as energy or industrial markets. |
| Deposits | Total deposits reported by all FDIC-insured branches located in the geography, in billions. | Deposits are attributed to the branch where they are booked. Large custodial, brokered, credit-card, or centrally booked balances can make a market appear far larger than its local economy. |
| Institutions | Count of distinct FDIC-insured institutions with at least one branch reporting deposits in the geography. | Counts institutions with a physical branch presence. Lenders serving the market without a branch are not included. |
| Top-3 deposit share | Combined share of geography deposits held by its three largest institutions by reported deposits. Where fewer than three institutions report deposits, it is the combined share of all reporting institutions, and therefore 100 percent. | A measure of deposit concentration, not of banking competition. It excludes credit unions, nonbank lenders, loan production offices, and digital competitors. |
| Deposit trend | Total deposits for each June 30 reporting date from 2020 through 2025, aggregated from branch-level records. All deposit figures and multi-year changes are nominal and are not adjusted for inflation. | Reflects where deposits are booked in each year. A geography can gain or lose balances through a merger or internal reorganization without any change in local activity. Because figures are nominal, a multi-year increase is not the same as real, inflation-adjusted growth. |
| Leading institutions | The ten institutions holding the most deposits in the market as of June 30, 2025, with branch counts and the change in that institution's deposits since 2020. | Where an institution acquired another bank, that bank's prior deposits are folded into the baseline, so five-year change reflects the combined, continuing franchise rather than reading as new. "No 2020 presence" means neither the institution nor a bank it later absorbed reported deposits that year. All figures are nominal, not adjusted for inflation. This folding is applied consistently at the market and county levels. |
| Deposits per branch | Total deposits divided by branch count. Shown in millions, or in billions above $1,000 million. Ranked across the 1,523 ranked counties, highest to lowest. | Elevated where a geography holds large centrally booked balances, so it is not a measure of branch productivity. |
| Deposits per capita | Total deposits divided by population (Census Vintage 2025). Ranked across the 1,523 ranked counties, highest to lowest. | Deposits are booked where a branch reports them, which may differ from where depositors live, so a high figure can reflect commercial or headquarters booking rather than local wealth. |
| Branches per 100,000 population | Branch count divided by population, multiplied by 100,000. Ranked across the 1,523 ranked counties, highest to lowest. | A density measure of physical branch presence, not of service quality or of digital access. |
| Median deposits per institution | The median of the deposit totals booked by each institution operating in the geography. Ranked across the 1,523 ranked counties, highest to lowest. | This measures local deposit presence per institution, not institution size. A lower figure means institutions typically hold smaller deposit positions in the geography; it does not, by itself, identify those institutions as community banks. Use Community & Regional Bank Share for institution scale. |
| Community & Regional Bank Share | The share of a geography's deposits held by institutions with $100 million to $50 billion in total assets, as reported to the FDIC (asset size measured at the insured-institution level, June 30, 2025). Ranked across the 1,523 ranked counties, highest to lowest. | A higher share points to a market where small to mid-size institutions hold more ground. The $100 million to $50 billion band is the Firm's definition of community and regional banks and is inclusive of both endpoints. |
| Share of parent market GDP / deposits | A county's GDP or deposits as a percentage of its parent market total. | Small counties are rounded to one decimal, so shares within a market may not sum to exactly 100 percent. |
| County's % of Bank's Deposits | On an institution page, the deposits that bank booked in the county as a percentage of that bank's total deposits across every county where it reports a branch, June 30, 2025. | Describes how concentrated the bank's own footprint is, based on where deposits are booked rather than where customers are located. A bank's county shares sum to 100 percent. |
| Bank's % of County Deposits | On an institution page, that bank's deposits in the county as a percentage of all deposits reported by FDIC-insured branches in that county, June 30, 2025. | A within-county deposit share. It counts only FDIC-insured branch deposits and reflects booking location, so it is a measure of local deposit presence, not of overall market position. |
| Headquarters | On an institution page, the city and state of the bank's home office, as recorded in the FDIC BankFind institution directory. Unlike every other figure on the page, it is not derived from the branch-level Summary of Deposits. | This is the chartered main-office location. It can differ from where a bank books most of its deposits or does most of its business, and for a bank acquired since June 30, 2025 it reflects the headquarters of record as of that reporting date. |
Deposit concentration bands
Markets are grouped into three descriptive bands by top-three deposit share:
| Band | Top-3 share |
|---|---|
| Fragmented | Under 45 percent |
| Moderate | 45 percent to under 60 percent |
| Concentrated | 60 percent and over |
Boundaries are applied consistently in the wording above and in the tool: a value of exactly 45 percent falls in Moderate, and a value of exactly 60 percent falls in Concentrated. Ranks throughout the resource run from most to least on the underlying measure (rank 1 is the highest value unless a metric is explicitly labeled otherwise), and they describe relative position within the ranked universe, not a rating of market quality or suitability.
These bands are categories created for this resource. They are not regulatory classifications, they do not correspond to any supervisory threshold, and they do not measure every form of banking competition. They are a starting point for comparison, not a conclusion.
Known limitations
- Deposits reflect booking location. A market with a large credit-card or custodial bank shows deposits far out of proportion to local commercial activity; Sioux Falls is the clearest example.
- Change over time can reflect mergers, not local growth. When a bank is acquired, its balances move to the acquirer's reporting, which can shift a market's total, or an institution's five-year change, sharply with no change in local lending or deposit gathering. Markets driven by a single institution or a large one-year move carry a note in their profile.
- Geography definitions change. The Census Bureau revises market delineations periodically, so a market's counties, and its totals, can change between vintages.
- Counties outside the 293 ranked markets are searchable and carry their own economic profile, but are not ranked.
Quality control
Deposit, institution, branch, and top-three share figures are calculated from individual FDIC Summary of Deposits branch records rather than taken from any published summary table. Branches are assigned to counties by their reported county code, or, where that code predates a boundary change, by their reported coordinates. Market totals are the sum of their component counties.
Before publication the dataset is checked for internal consistency: that per-capita figures reconcile to their component GDP and population, that county totals sum to their parent market within rounding, that every county either maps to a ranked market or is explicitly designated as outside the 293-market universe, that deposit concentration values fall between zero and one hundred percent, that rank ordering matches the underlying metric, and that missing values are distinguished from legitimate zero values, with no required field left unresolved. Figures shown on the page are checked against the underlying build dataset for presentation accuracy.
As a further check, every market and county was independently recomputed from the raw FDIC branch records, rebuilding each deposit total, institution count, branch count, deposit concentration figure, and deposits-per-branch figure from scratch rather than comparing to the build output. All 8,787 of these values matched (the 8,787 comprises five figures for each of the 1,523 ranked counties and four figures for each of the 293 markets; deposits, institution and branch counts, and deposits per branch are compared exactly, and top-three concentration is compared to full stored precision). Separately, as a cross-check, the current-year totals we calculate reconcile to the corresponding deposit, institution count, and concentration figures the FDIC publishes in the Summary of Deposits for all 293 markets. The Executive Recruiter Group has not audited the underlying records as reported to the FDIC by each institution.
Corrections
If you find a figure that appears wrong, please say so. Accuracy matters more here than completeness, and a correction is genuinely welcome. Reach us by reporting a data issue.
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