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Who: Commerce Bank
Home Base: Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Year Founded: 1973

Sunday morning in Gloucester Township, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia, is like Sunday morning in most places. Blackwood-Clementon Road, which churns during the week with harried commuters, feels eerily quiet. The strip mall there looks deserted. Even Laurel Hill Bible Church, across the street, is calm, since the congregation has already filed in.

The only sign of life is at the corner bank, where seven people are huddled in the ATM alcove between the door and the lobby. Curiously enough, they're not using the ATM. They look as though they expect the lobby to open at any minute. Which is to say, they look ridiculous. Don't they know it's Sunday? Don't they realize they're at a bank?

But at 9:50 AM, something amazing happens: The bank's doors open, and branch manager Regina McGee ushers the group inside. Darryl Pettus, a 33-year-old grocery-store clerk, deposits money into his ailing sister's account so that she can pay her health insurance. Before long, there are unshaven men in Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirts emptying sandwich bags filled with change into the coin-counting machine and children dressed for Sunday school comparing tongues stained red by the bank's cherry-flavored lollipops.

Extraordinary? Actually, no. This is an average Sunday at Commerce Bank, which prides itself on being the most convenient bank around. It may also be the most unconventional. For starters, it doesn't observe traditional banking hours. No Monday-through-Friday, 9-to-5 (or 9-to-3) limited availability. Commerce is open seven days a week. Typically, the branch offices are open from 7:30 AM to 8 PM during the week and for most of the day on weekends. Gloucester Township is the exception: Because Fridays are so busy, the drive-through window serves customers until midnight -- make that 10 minutes after midnight. Thanks to the companywide 10-minute rule, the branches open 10 minutes early and stay open 10 minutes late, an added convenience for early birds and procrastinators. "This," says McGee, "is the way banking should work."

Why such unbankerlike behavior? Because Commerce, based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, with branches throughout the state as well as in Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania, doesn't model itself on the giants of its industry. Its models are the giants of retailing, including the Home Depot, McDonald's, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart. President and CEO Vernon Hill believes fundamentally -- and tells anyone who will listen -- that Commerce isn't in the banking business. Rather, it's in the retail business, and its business model revolves around becoming a power retailer. "The problem with most banks is that they abuse their customers every day. We want to wow ours," Hill says. Banking is practically a dirty word around Commerce. As chief retail officer Dennis DiFlorio puts it, "The greatest insult you can give someone here is to say, 'You're thinking like a banker.' "