Gardner Bancshares, Inc.

Gardner Bancshares, Inc. is another holding-company style banking name, and it matters more for ownership than for what a customer sees at the counter. By our assessment, its main value is that it sounds like the parent of a bank rather than the bank itself, which is honest enough for a corporate structure. That kind of company can be useful for organizing banking operations and keeping the legal pieces together. The downside is that it is not a service brand in the everyday sense, so the name stays a layer above the actual products and branches. In practice, people usually meet this sort of company through filings, investor materials, or the bank under it, not through a front door. Gardner Bancshares, Inc. belongs to the banking architecture, not the retail window.