Frost Bank opens first Kerrville branch, leans on organic growth and old ties

Frost Bank has opened its first branch in Kerrville, part of a statewide expansion strategy the bank says it has deliberately built without buying up competitors.

Kevin Thompson, Frost’s Boerne market president and lead for Hill Country expansion, and Kyle Ogera, the market president of the Kerrville financial center, joined The Lead Live on Wednesday to discuss the branch, which sits at Clay and Main streets.

Thompson said Frost’s leadership chose an organic growth model over acquisitions eight years ago, and the bank has expanded steadily since.

“Some banks take an acquisitive approach, an acquisition model where they go and buy existing franchises, kind of tack them on to their business,” Thompson said. “Eight years ago in 2018, our leadership decided to take an organic expansion strategy and we’ve added 80 locations.”

Frost now operates 209 locations statewide, up from about 130 in 2018. Thompson said the new Fredericksburg branch, which opened last week, was number 209, with Kerrville opening just before it.

Frost’s arrival in Kerrville continues a rivalry with San Antonio-based banking families that stretches back more than a century. Thompson traced Frost’s roots to founder Col. T.C. Frost, a former Texas Ranger who got into banking by loaning money to sheep herders during wool price downturns in San Antonio.

That history runs directly through Kerrville. As local historian Joe Herring Jr. detailed in a recent column, Frost and Kerrville founder Charles Schreiner were both Texas Rangers-turned-merchants-turned-bankers, born in the same decade, who built competing wool and mohair commission businesses before Frost shifted focus entirely to banking in 1896. Schreiner’s bank later operated for more than 120 years before failing in April 1990. Thompson noted the two banks’ historical overlap extended to ownership: branches in Boerne and Fair Oaks Ranch were originally Schreiner-family banks.

Thompson said the bank has resisted outsourcing its digital infrastructure, a decision he attributed to former CEO Dick Evans.

“Several years ago, our CEO, former CEO at the time, Dick Evans, said, ‘I don’t want any technology company to come between me and our customers,'” Thompson said. “So he said, ‘I want to build our Frost Bank website and mobile app from scratch in-house.'”

Ogera described what customers can expect walking into the Kerrville branch, including private rooms for account conversations.

“If you’re looking to open an account, we bring you over into a room, secure. Nobody can overhear conversations,” Ogera said. “And we got people that are knowledgeable that are able to take care of whatever transaction you have at that time.”

Thompson also pointed to the bank’s response to last year’s July 4 flood as evidence of its commitment to the community. Frost’s charitable foundation donated $500,000 to the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country to help lead early recovery efforts, he said, and bank employees have volunteered for projects including care packages for teachers and river trail cleanup work.

“We try not to do it for the return,” Thompson said. “We try to do it for the purpose and just the intrinsic value that’s involved.”