PROSPERITY BANCSHARES INC. Houston, Texas Want High Credit Quality? Look No Further.(THE NEW AMERICA)

Byline: STEVE WATKINS

If you've taken out a loan from Prosperity Bancshares Inc., make sure you don't fall behind on your payments.

Prosperity Chief Executive David Zalman won't have much patience with you.

"Our philosophy has always been, if it's 30 days past due we need to bring in the property and foreclose," Zalman said. "Where we get paid, some others don't sometimes."

It's hard to argue with the numbers. Prosperity had just $1,000 in nonperforming loans at year-end. That's so low that its ratio of bad loans to total loans comes in at 0.0%.

Of course, when you never let loans get 90 days past due you never have loans fall into the nonperforming category. But Prosperity's charge-offs also come in at a ridiculously low 0.06% of loans.

"They have some of the best credit quality ratios in the country," said Bain Slack, analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.