Proud to be a part of your community . . .

Central Bank is a full service, independently owned Minnesota bank that specializes in serving the banking needs of small businesses. Central Bank was chartered in April of 1988 when Oak Park State Bank failed and John Morrison, Central Bank’s owner, acquired the failed bank’s assets. In April 1991, the Bank, then called St. Croix Valley Bank, formally merged with Cosmopolitan State Bank and became Central Bank. Cosmopolitan had served the community of Stillwater since June of 1919. Morrison has been in the banking business in Minnesota and other states for the past 40 years. Besides Minnesota and Florida, Morrison has previously owned banks in Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Wisconsin.

In 2009, Central acquired Mainstreet Bank of Forest Lake, Jennings State Bank of Spring Grove, Riverview Community Bank of Otsego, and Commerce Bank of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers, Florida. Central now has 17 locations including Center City, Centerville, Coon Rapids, Eden Prairie, Elk River, Forest Lake, Fort Myers (FL.) Golden Valley, Hudson (WI), Minneapolis, Newport, Spring Grove, South St. Paul, St. Michael, Stillwater, White Bear Lake and Woodbury.

The overall strategy for Central Bank has always been to be an independent community bank providing a higher level of personalized service than is generally available from larger banks.  Central Bank delivers its localized personal service combined with widely established technology-based services to provide convenience and easy access for its customers.  It’s the intent of the bank to develop long lasting and broad relationships with its customers that focus on basic banking products.  To facilitate this, the Bank has committed to keeping employee turnover low so customers are familiar with those serving them and customer relationships are serviced in a more personal manner.

The bank’s low turnover rate also complements the objective of maintaining a high level of credit quality.  Most of the lenders have been with the bank for a number of years and have a deep understanding of the credit culture and desired type of loan transactions. The majority of the business of Central Bank is relationship based, meaning most customers will have multiple account relationships, especially loan customers.

The employees of Central Bank are looking forward to serving new and existing communities. With the recent expansion, the bank is now one of the largest and safest independent banks in Minnesota.

(Left to right) President/CEO - Larry Albert, Owner - John Morrison, Chairman - Kurt Weise