Nov. 1--Community banks are gaining on big, national banks in Southwest Virginia, according to data released recently by the federal government.

HomeTown Bank and Valley Bank in Roanoke are still in the single digits in terms of market share. However, there is evidence they attracted more than their share of deposits during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.

Same for National Bank of Blacksburg, which saw its double-digit market share grow by a hair.

Meanwhile, the domain of several large banks is declining slightly in Southwest Virginia.

Bank of America and BB&T, in particular, aren't quite as dominant as before, according to a snapshot of deposits from June 30 released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The market share report, released in mid-October, is one possible indicator of which financial-services brands people trust most in this time of financial disarray. It outlines the universe of banks in the region and how much money people have parked in each of them. Each bank's market share is its share of total deposits in its market.

Bank deposits grew by 12 percent in the Roanoke metropolitan market and 7 percent in the New River Valley metropolitan market. But some banks collected a disproportionately large chunk of the new money, improving their market share.

All bank accounts are FDIC insured up to $250,000, which means bank deposits that size or smaller are considered safe whether in a small bank or a large one, a new bank or an old one.

In spite of this guarantee, consumers showed clear preferences for some of roughly 20 banking brands in the area.

George Morgan, a professor in the finance department at Virginia Tech, offered a possible explanation. He said consumers better understand the riskiness of putting money in a bank because of the many bank failures they witnessed during the tumult of 2008 and 2009.

He said with large banks facing most of the trouble, consumers gravitated toward small banks, known as community banks,

"They're not in the news. They're not failing, at least around here," Morgan said. "That's a good thing. People are more willing to put their deposits there."

Some people have ended up at dominant banks that effectively chose them.

Time and again, mergers and acquisitions have bundled previously small or regional banks into big, national brands with thousands of branches.

Case in point: Wachovia Bank.

Wachovia is the most popular bank in the Roanoke Valley, according to FDIC deposit tallies.