Bank of the West

Bank of the West is one of those names that promises conventional banking first: accounts, lending, cards, and branch service for people and businesses that want a standard bank relationship. By our assessment, its main strength is exactly that recognizable retail-banking role, which is easy to understand and easy to compare with larger competitors. The downside is that a name like this does not imply anything especially distinctive; it lives or dies on the ordinary details of fees, service, and product range. In practice it is the sort of institution people use for deposits and loans, not for novelty. It sits among mainstream banks, and that is the whole point of it.