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Milestones: Citizens Bank of Connecticut
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Business New Haven
11/24/2003
By: Richard Rangoon
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Citizens Bank of Connecticut
63 Eugene O'Neill Drive
New London 06320
Tel: 860-638-4411
Fax: 860-638-4488
Web site: citizensbank.com
Ownership: Citizens Financial Group
Milestone: 10 years
Timeline: Ten years ago in May, Citizens Bank entered the Connecticut market with its purchase of New England Savings Bank.
"When we bought into the Connecticut market ten years ago, we bought 18 branches. We now have 42 branches. We've acquired, we've spread out, and we've grown in ten years," reports Heather Tolley, V.P. and director of public relations for Citizens Bank of Connecticut.
Since its purchase of New England Savings Bank in 1993, Citizens has proceeded to buy Coastal Federal Savings Bank in 1994; Farmers & Mechanics Bank in 1996; the Bank of New Haven in 1997; and four branches of Branford Savings Bank in 1998.
Today Citizens has 850 branches in the New England and mid-Atlantic regions.
Moreover, the bank has reached another milestone. Three of its branches - New Haven's Church Street branch, the headquarters in New London, and Rocky Hill - have recently surpassed $100 million in deposits.
Citizen's third milestone is becoming the state's leader in U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) loans for fiscal, Tolley says.
The bank's focus is on commercial real estate lending, municipal lending and middle-market lending. The bank defines "middle-market" businesses as those with annual sales of from about $10 million to $250 million.
Awards and Accomplishments: Tolley points to two main developments as influencing the changing character of personal banking.
The first is paying bills online. "Forty percent of our new customers are using our online banking here in Connecticut," she notes.
The second development is the debit card. More customers are asking for debit cards to allow them to get cash back when making purchases at vendors. Consequently, ATM use has been declining, Tolley reports.
"In the marketplace we're becoming a cashless society, and the debit card has been a big part of that," explains Tolley.
Citizens Bank of Connecticut employs about 430 workers. More than 15,000 people are employed by the corporation as a whole.
"We have grown very steadily. Five years ago, when I started working at Citizens, we were a $2 billion bank," says Tolley. "Today, we're $3.2 billion."
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