After five years under a consent order from federal regulators, Capital West National Bank is finally in good standing with the country's financial watchdogs.

When the financial industry took its hit in 2007, Capital West had only been in Fort Collins for two years, and the recession took too large a toll for Capital West to remain as healthy as regulators would have preferred.

Many banks across the country were placed under consent orders during the downturn, and for a variety of reasons. In Capital West's case, it was not an issue of liquidity, as it often is, but instead was a question of asset quality, particularly in the realm of real estate loans, according to Capital West President Doug Woods.

As of June 30, 2007, the bank, a branch of the First National Bank of Wyoming, held more than $108 million in real estate loans, a number that far outranked other types of lending at Capital West. The next-highest loan-dollar volume at the time was $30 million in commercial loans.

The most telling number, though, was the ratio of troubled loans-to-capital in the bank. In 2007, this ratio was around 90 percent, according to Woods.

To solve the problem, Capital West brought in a new management