Print edition: 
If there is any good news about bank failures in Kansas, it is that only four banks have been closed in the first U.S. banking crisis of the 21st century.
Since the start of the crisis in 2008, those four failed banks — Columbian Bank and Trust of Topeka, TeamBank of Paola, First National Bank of Anthony and SolutionsBank in Overland Park — represented 1.1 percent of Kansas banks and thrifts.
That's a fraction of the number of failed Kansas banks and savings and loans in the last banking crisis, when 10.7 percent of them — 69 — failed.
"We haven't had near the number of bank failures that we did," said Kansas Bank Commissioner Tom Thull.
But Thull said the crisis, at least in Kansas, is not over.
"I'm not sure we have hit bottom," Thull said.
He listens to the economists and reads the economic data, all of which point to a mending economy.
But in Kansas there are some banks — Thull wouldn't identify them — that are wrestling with commercial real estate deals that have soured.
That's why he's reluctant to pronounce that the bottom of the banking crisis has been reached in Kansas.
"The challenges these several banks are facing will not be resolved overnight," Thull said.
He said he's hopeful that the problems will be resolved. But a resolution will require these deals to have tenants to occupy the commercial properties and buyers who aren't just looking for a "fire sale" purchase of them.
Chuck Stones, president of the industry's largest trade group, the Kansas Bankers Association, said he, too, doesn't think the crisis is over for Kansas banks.
But at this point, "I think most of the issues have been identified, and I think the people involved have a realistic point of view and are optimistic about working through their problems or are looking for someone to buy their bank," Stones said.
Compared with the states surrounding it, Kansas doesn't have the most failed banks. Nor does it have the least. According to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data, Missouri holds the distinction of having the most failed banks so far, at nine, while Oklahoma has the fewest, at one.
"Banks will always reflect the underlying economy of the area in which they do business," said Roger Beverage, president of the Oklahoma Bankers Association. "For the most part, the thing that I think has kept Oklahoma at the head of the class has been the underlying economy. It's energy-based... and agriculture, and it's been pretty good."
Stable real estate prices and conservative lending practices have also kept Oklahoma banks sound through the crisis thus far, Beverage said.
But he added that unemployment there is creeping up and "we're seeing a little slowdown in energy production."
Other contiguous states have had fewer bank failures than Kansas in this crisis. Colorado has had three and Nebraska has had two, according to FDIC data.
Lessons learned?
Though this banking crisis is not over, there are fewer casualties than in the last one, which stretched from 1980 to 1994.
That crisis had a confluence of events, including recession, significant changes to banking laws and regulations and troubled times in industries that were linchpins of the Kansas and regional economies, such as oil and agriculture.
"Back then the crisis was agriculture," said Thull, the commissioner. "The majority of our banks are rural and... when you have an ag crisis there were more numbers that failed."
This time around, the problems for Kansas banks largely concern real estate and construction loans.
The fewer failures reflect lessons learned from the last crisis, bank officials and experts said.
Beverage said many of the CEOs of Oklahoma banks experienced the last crisis, which claimed 122 banks there.
"The guys and the women running them today learned their lessons from the '80s and early '90s," he said.
Rick LeCompte, a finance professor at Wichita State University and a commercial banking expert, said the last crisis weeded out weak banks and thrifts, and their ranks weren't replaced.
LeCompte said the Federal Reserve's actions to keep interest rates at record lows for so long has served to keep adjustable rate mortgages in check and prevented additional foreclosures, thus protecting banks' and thrifts' loan portfolios.
"We haven't really seen those adjustable rates kick in," he said. "Once those rates go up, you could see another wave of foreclosures."
The low rates have bought time for banks to "earn their capital back."
With tightened capital standards, that is paramount to banks and thrifts weathering the crisis.
"Capital is king, and liquidity is probably next in succession," Thull said.
LeCompte also said the regulators' monitoring system is much better than before the last crisis, which has served to address issues at problem banks much sooner than in the past.
And increased regulatory requirements have made it harder to start a new bank, thus improving the safety and soundness of those new banks that are granted a charter, LeCompte said.
Stones said there are likely to be a few more Kansas banks that will go away, but not because of regulators closing them.
There are some bankers who tell him they're don't want to be in the business anymore, Stones said.
"And they're looking to sell their bank," he said. "They're seeing the new law (financial reform) being passed, and all this pressure is being put on them from an earnings standpoint."
But he's also seeing increased interest from people wanting to buy banks in Kansas.
"I've had conversations with two groups of people that are looking for banks to buy and are looking to put banks in Kansas," he said.
"I do think there are people who are looking beyond the horizon. They've seen our industry and what happens in a recession and what happens after a recession. We'll adjust, roll with the punches and be profitable on the other side."
