According to a song by the Gatlin Bros., “All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills.” But how much gold? And forget Beverly Hills – what about the San Fernando Valley? The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. compiles data on deposits at every bank branch in the country. Based on the most recent available data, from June of last year, the wealthiest branch in the greater Valley area was the Wells Fargo & Co. bank in Sherman Oaks with deposits of nearly $930 million. The second-place branch, a City National Bank outpost – also in Sherman Oaks – had $877 million. As for the Gatlin Bros.’ assertion, the data show multiple billion-dollar branches in Beverly Hills, Pasadena and Century City. But the biggest branch in Los Angeles County was a Union Bank in downtown Los Angeles with $26.7 billion in deposits. Bill Kiefer, partner at real estate brokerage NAI Capital in Oxnard, said banks differentiate between business branches, which cater to institutional clients and are clustered near corporate headquarters, and retail banks that serve individual customers. “On the retail end, those branches are becoming smaller and fewer,” he said. “Customers aren’t going into branch offices all that often.” Also, both business and retail branches tend to prosper by staying in a good location for a long time, he said. In Ventura County, the FDIC data has some surprises. The richest branch was a Wells Fargo in working-class Oxnard with $640 million. The poorest was a Rabobank in upscale Thousand Oaks with $264,000. – Joel Russell
