RiverBank, which opened for business here in 2006, posted a loss of $282,000 for 2008, according to data it has filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

That's improved, though, from a loss of $797,000 in 2007, and President and CEO Duane Brandenburg says the bank was profitable for the last seven months of the year, although a needed increase in its provision for loan losses due to strong loan growth kept it from posting a profit for the year.

"We're actually pretty happy where we are, considering the circumstances," Brandenburg says, referring to the economy and reeling financial markets. "We're really about six months behind where we anticipated we would be. Considering everything, that's not too bad."

For 2009, he says, "We're forecasting we're going to be profitable all year," but he also notes that it's "pretty hard right now to predict the future," given continued market volatility.

The privately held bank ended last year with total assets of $133.5 million, up nearly one-third from $101.2 million a year earlier and up 163 percent from $50.8 million at the end of 2006, when it had been operating for only about seven months, the FDIC data show.

It had total loans of $119.1 million and deposits of $120.1 million as of Dec. 31, up sharply from $86.7 million and $87.7 million, respectively at the end of 2007.

The bank had recorded its first profitable month in July 2007, 14 months after opening its doors, which Brandenburg had said was faster than projected and probably four or five months ahead of the industry norm for a new bank. The changing interest-rate climate, though, combined with last year's steep economic decline, has made it tough for RiverBank to sustain and build on that profitability, he says.

Looking ahead, Brandenburg says, "I don't anticipate that we will have a whole lot of growth in 2009." Along with economic considerations, the bank is beginning to mature, he says, adding, "It's going to be a challenge just to replace the amount of credit that's going to be paid off."

Overall, though, he says, he feels good about where the bank is positioned.

"I don't think we have a customer that isn't concerned, but I think everybody has a positive resilience about Spokane," he says. Most of the people he talks with in the real estate industry here, for example, are optimistic that the local market is going to start to improve, he says.

RiverBank is a niche bank that offers highly personalized services, mostly to small-business and commercial clients in the Spokane area, and has said it has no interest in servicing a broad clientele or growing to a larger size by adding branches. It recently, though, has been stepping up its marketing in an effort to expand its customer base.

Its services include concierge courier vehicles, treated and insured as mobile "branches." It now employs 29 people.

RiverBank occupies most of the top two floors of a five-story building at 203 E. Spokane Falls Boulevard and initially operated a branch in a 3,800-square-foot building just west of there, at 34 E. Spokane Falls Boulevard, where it also has been keeping its courier cars and has some computer operations.

The bank now is a wholly owned subsidiary of RiverBank Holding Co.

One of the reasons for creating the bank-holding company was to make it easier to set up an employee stock ownership plan. "That still is our plan," but because of the substantial costs involved, it probably won't happen this year, Brandenburg says.