BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – It\u2019s an ongoing joke: North Dakota has a lot of banks.<\/p>\n
But while the state does have a lot of places to bank, it\u2019s a little more complicated than that.<\/p>\n
North Dakota ranks second in the country for bank branches per person. Meanwhile, there are areas across the country where the number of banks is diminishing.<\/p>\n
According to the president and CEO of the North Dakota Bankers Association, Rick Clayburgh, a lot of that has to do with regulatory and economic pressures.<\/p>\n
The state has about 70 banks operating here with about 390 full-service bank branches. These are locations that can belong to banks headquartered here or somewhere else.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s more unique in rural America more than anything. Because how important it is to be able to serve a community in a rural, very rural, large geographic state,\u201d Clayburgh said.<\/p>\n
Clayburgh said that North Dakota\u2019s ability to maintain that stability is vital for the entire state, especially for rural communities. He notes how banks can become a \u201cfinancial heartbeat\u201d for small communities by supporting things like their local athletic programs and community events. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo see a strong healthy community means there\u2019s generally a strong, healthy bank in that community. And the bank branches help that because, it is again, those local banks across North Dakota who are helping support those communities,\u201d Clayburgh said.<\/p>\n
Clayburgh said North Dakotans may be right about seeing a lot of banks, but what they\u2019re seeing is a high number of branches for the state\u2019s population.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KFYR. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – It\u2019s an ongoing joke: North Dakota has a lot of banks. But while the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[78156,4,2408,28,101,78157,4934,4932,4931,4933,4935,4930],"class_list":["post-900353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-bismarck","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-kfyr","tag-live-speeches","tag-live-updates","tag-live-video","tag-press-conference","tag-real-time-coverage","tag-video-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}