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The state’s largest locally owned bank wants its oversight to have a local flavor, too.

Bankers Trust Co. has applied to become a state-chartered bank, falling under the oversight of the Iowa Division of Banking and the local office of the Federal Reserve.

“When 90 percent of the banks in Iowa are state-chartered banks, it just seems to make more sense,” Bankers Trust President and CEO Suku Radia said.

In fact, having a state charter made sense for 82 of Bankers Trust’s 92 years in business. The bank was founded in 1917 with a state charter. It became a federally chartered bank in 1989 when bank leaders considered taking its scope of lending activities to the national stage.

Regulators who are based in the state “have a better grasp of local conditions,” Radia said.

He noted that having both state and federal eyes on the bank will make Bankers Trust a better organization.

“We prefer having both a state as well as a federal regulator simply because they bring divergent viewpoints which will make us an even better organization,” Radia said in a prepared statement. “These two regulatory agencies understand our local market conditions well and that level of understanding is especially meaningful in the current economic environment.”

The change will not result in any changes to the bank’s operations or systems.

In September, Bankers Trust reported that it had $2.5 billion in assets, $176 million in equity capital and a risk-based capital ratio of more than 10 percent.