Searching for Bank Acquistion Targets

I was looking at an Idaho based bank the other day, and noticed that there were only 13 FDIC insured institutions in the state.  This led to me thinking about which states have the least number of banks, which led me to thinking about which states have the most banks relative to population, which led to me wondering about banking assets per state versus population. 

All this resulted in the following table.

This table was more informational - to satisfy my own curiosity - but a couple of takeaways when thinking about bank consolidation and investing opportunities:

1. Areas with a low assets per bank seem poised for M&A.  This is the low hanging fruit of the industry - banks looking to consolidate to remain competitive, afford new technology, and lower overall expenses.  This is the light green area of the above table.
2. Insides of these areas, the best states would be those with a high asset to population number (these are the slightly darker shade of green).  States with above average customer deposits (assuming that higher assets to population is funded by core deposits) may present a value play for cheap bank funding.

If my logic is correct (always a questionable assumption), then the Midwest is an area to look for more bank mergers.

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