BankHometown has eyes on Worcester
Photo | Grant Welker
BankHometown is due for its first Worcester branches, including one being built on Grove Street that began under Millbury Savings Bank, with which bankHometown is merging.
Oxford-based bankHometown doesn't have a Worcester banking branch today but is focused on growth in the city following a merger with Millbury Savings Bank that's expected to close next month.
Thanks to Millbury Savings Bank, bankHometown will get its first foothold in Worcester with not just Millbury Savings Bank's location at 1001 Millbury St. in Worcester but also another branch underway today on Grove Street that's slated to open next spring. That branch, along with the two other Millbury Savings Bank locations, will carry the bankHometown name.
With roughly $1 billion in assets after its merger with Millbury Savings Bank, bankHometown will still be one of the smaller players in Central Massachusetts, behind not just national banks with a local presence but also those based here, including Fidelity Bank and UniBank. But Robert Morton, the president and CEO of Millbury Savings Bank and of the combined entity post-merger, says the company is looking to open a few smaller Worcester branches in the years ahead.
[Related: In digital age, bank branches hit all-time high]
"I think we're not the only ones who are trying to execute that," he said. "It might a matter of who's able to execute that better."
The new Grove Street branch will be a start, adding to a commercial stretch of the city that already has within about a minute's drive a UniBank, Commerce Bank, Bank of America, United Bank, Santander Bank and a Digital Federal Credit Union.
The new bankHometown will be 1,700 square feet, a smaller footprint of branches of past years, when more customers would go into a branch to physically deposit a check or make a withdrawal. Today, Morton said, customers still want to be close to a branch but use them for other reasons including for other banking questions.
"I don't see branches going away any time soon, and I don't see people-less branches," he said.
The bankHometown and Millbury Savings Bank merger is expected to close Oct. 18, with 16 branches among the two entities. The banks have said no branch closures or staff reductions are part of the merger plan. Morton and five members of Millbury Savings Bank’s board of trustees will join the bankHometown board of directors, and two will join the board of directors of Hometown Financial Group, bankHometown's parent company.
Hometown Financial Group, has roughly $3 billion in assets at 32 locations across Massachusetts and Connecticut including bankESB and Pilgrim Bank. Matthew Sosik, the president and CEO of bankHometown, was said earlier this year to be moving post-merger into other roles with Hometown Financial Group and Easthampton-based bankESB.
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