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Claremont Savings Bank gears up for Vt. location
By Nancy A. Cavanaugh | Feb 06, 2015 Share on print Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on email More Sharing Services
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CLAREMONT — After months of planning and organizing, Claremont Savings Bank is nearly ready to welcome customers to their new branch in Springfield, Vermont on Monday, Feb. 23.
“It seemed like it was a long way off but now it’s February and the opening is just a few weeks away. We've been working very hard,” said Sherwood Moody, President and CEO at CSB, in a phone interview. “The customer’s accounts are being switched over from the Brattleboro system to ours. The integrity of their accounts is the most important thing to us.”
In addition to making sure accounts are ready to go, CSB has been sending out required disclosures about the changes and other important information.
“Today [Wednesday] we will be putting welcome packets in the mail for customers,” said Brenda Reed, Sr. Vice President of Retail Services and Clerk. “They should receive them later this week or early next week.”
“In the next few weeks we will be sending out ATM cards and checks,” Moody said. “We want to make sure they have Claremont Savings Bank in their hands when we open that Monday.”
Customers in Springfield have also had access to the bank’s call center, a service not available from Brattleboro Savings and Loan.
“We've had a lot of calls into the call center with positive comments and customers asking about next steps,” Moody said. “The call center will be a plus for customers. They will have access to our staff who can do pretty much anything the tellers can do, like transfer funds and open accounts.”
The transition ramps up on Friday, Feb. 20.
“The Brattleboro branch will close early that afternoon,” said Moody.
But there will not be a grand opening celebration when CSB opens on Feb. 23.
“We want to make sure the customers are satisfied. We’ll have a grand opening in April,” said Moody.
Instead, customers will be greeted with a new sign and familiar faces.
“The signage will be changed on Saturday, if there’s no snow,” said Moody. “Many of the staff will be the same so everybody they see on Monday, they’re already familiar with. There is a larger staff so there will be some new faces.”
Along with the call center, other new services include a lending component and extended drive-in hours.
“We are going to have a lending component. The variety of loans will be expansive,” Moody said. “There will be an online application customers can use.”
There will also be an extensive suite of products for business customers.
“There are a lot of businesses in Springfield. We’re looking forward to taking care of them,” said Moody.
“There will be business development people available to talk to business owners at their location,” Reed added. “We’ll have people on the street.”
The drive-in hours will begin at 7 a.m. and close at 5:30 p.m. along with hours on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Moody is enthusiastic about this addition for CSB.
“We already have a large customer-base in Springfield. They’re very happy we’ll be closer for them,” said Moody. “We’re excited to expand to Springfield. We can be closer to them, that’s a big win.”
More information about the transition can be found on the CSB website at www.claremontsavings.com.
So, Claremont Bank now owns the S&L; the Royal Bank of Scotland owns Citizens Bank; Mascoma owns Chittenden Bank, apparently. Who owns the other banks in town, and what does this mean for Springfielders who are looking for loans to improve their business, their home or their children's prospects in life? What sort of a reputation does Claremont Bank have?
ReplyDeleteYou know Chuck, if people in town have decent credit, I don't believe they need to worry about borrowing money from any institution. If they don't, not so much
ReplyDeleteLending to someone whom they thought had "decent credit" was a problem for Bellows Falls back in the early Eighties. Some Italian claiming to have millions showed up, started getting loans for property renewal and decamped, leaving a lot of distress behind him. (Among the flotsam was the building now housing the China Garden, sold to the Tams for $35,000.)
ReplyDeleteThat's what happens when the lenders didn't know the score
And when you have a dishonest bank--like the Royal Bank of Scotland, cough, cough-- then you have a predator ready to strip the assets of Springfielders who have good credit.
Finally, when you have a lender who doesn't know the character of the person with good credit, you have a situation in which good people will be denied for the most short-sighted of reasons. There is probably any number of inventors in Springfield who would have been shot down for financing had the banks not been locally-owned in the days of Precision Valley.
Chuck just can't resist villainizing and sniping at any commercial enterprise. Personal responsibility is a foreign concept to him. The nanny state must govern us to guarantee an equally low standard of living for all...
DeleteClaremont Savings Bank has been a reputable institution for years and many of our parents and grandparents did business with them, and sons and daughters followed in their footsteps with personal and business accounts. We were willing to drive to Claremont to do our banking with them because we enjoyed doing business with them. Having a branch in Springfield is a definite plus!
On November 26, 2013, the Daily Mail reported the Royal Bank of Scotland was under investigation for defrauding customers and defrauding its small business customers by driving them into bankruptcy: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2514150/RBS-faces-criminal-probe-Serious-Fraud-office-claims-killed-small-firms-gain.html
DeleteI am glad the S&L has only been bought by a fairly local bank, BUT when Claremont gets bought out by the Bank of Cleveland and then sold off to Citi or Goldman Sachs-- in other words, by some ever-more-remote, Wall-Street-driven entity, the pressure mounts for the locals to produce yet more revenue, usually by firing staff-- their Senior Account Executive got the bum's rush, the same as Holly Farnsworth did-- and eventually stealing from the customers, usually by jacking up the ATM and checking account charges. See what good it does for you to protest them when you don't have somebody like Senator Elizabeth Warren backing you up.
When Harry Shepard Sr. sold his landfill to CFI, they only kept him on until he refused to generate another $28,000 in revenues (about $84,000 today) because he knew he couldn't generate more customers and he didn't think it was fair to raise his price. Well, it wasn't "his" price any more.
As RBS got off its US charges with a fine and no admission of wrongdoing, keep your eye on what happens over the next few years. And pray that Claremont doesn't get bought out.
Right now, the only American bank that Americans can trust in my opinion is the Royal Bank of Canada.
PS: Why do we get all bent out of shape at the mention of loss of local control of schools, yet airily dismiss the loss of local control of our banks?
DeleteSen. Elizabeth "Fauxcahantas" Warren? Now there's a pillar of integrity!!! You're probably breathlessly awaiting the return of Lyin' Williams to the NBC News anchor desk, too!
DeleteHolly Farnsworth, the branch manager at the "new" bank has been the branch manager at the "old" bank for years. She's a local person. She knows her customers.
ReplyDeleteHolly has left to work for the Chester Schools. Her seat has been vacant for about three weeks, and I expect when the new person sits in it, it will burst into flame like the Siege Perilous of Camelot.
DeleteThere are several credit unions in town, each one of them locally owned; One Credit Union, Windsor County South Credit Union, and River Valley Credit Union.
DeleteRight, and the "old bank" was performing so well under her management that it was ultimately sold to another institution. Here's the beauty of the marketplace - you can choose to do business with whichever bank you want! Freedom of choice. It's a great thing - for everyone except the socialist oppressors, who would prefer that you have no choice!
Delete12:51, Holly Farnsworth was hired after the S&L had been sold to Brattleboro S&L, and it hadn't been an S&L in anything but name for at least 30 years before that-- that was when the depositor/owners were cut from the board of directors and lost whatever control they'd had of the course of the institution.
DeleteClaremont Bank is already making its impact felt. With its new paperless processing fee for deposits, my savings account is now earning 0.02% per year, one fifty-sixth of what it had been earning before the sale.
Anybody who isn't in a credit union is at risk for this sort of treatment-- and worse, if they have a debit card, a bank loan, or a home mortgage taken out in the bubble years.
12:56, what can you tell us about Elizabeth Warren, and is your source something other than Fox News?
Another misrepresentation. Visit the CSB website. Checking and Saving account rates are 0.03% or higher across the board. You've overdramatized the situation once again. Sadly, you won't be able to tune in to your favorite anchor this evening and revel in NBC News' fiction because Lyin' Williams has been suspended. Birds of a feather!
ReplyDeleteWhat does the CSB website say about the paperless processing charges? I hope it says the same thing CSB is now putting on my monthly statement. With that charge, my annual rate is now only 2/3ds of what you say it is.
ReplyDeleteApples and oranges... You are earning at least .03%, as advertised, and you obviously agreed to the other fees and charges, so quit sniveling.
DeleteNo, I am not earning the .03%. I am only earning 0.02%.
DeleteSo, 5:31, when your bank tells you it is slapping a charge on your account, raising the charge on your checking account and tripling your safe deposit box fee, what do you do to reduce the increases? Or do you just take it like a man?
Chuck, 0.03% is 30¢ per year per $1000 (as opposed to 20¢), so it's nothing more than a pittance anyway.
DeleteThey also sent out paperwork indicating old Springfield S&L debit cards would be deactivated on Tuesday, Feb. 24, but the new card can't be activated until Mon., Feb. 23.
As it turns out (contrary to their mailing), the old card will actually be deactivated at the end of the day on the 22nd (before the new card can be activated), NOT the 24th. I'd hate to be travelling somewhere right now and relying on a debit card from them for expenses. An overlap of a couple of weeks should have been provided.
So far, their actions don't indicate much regard for customers (or providing accurate information).