It all started in 2005 for Community Mutual Savings Bank, when its board of directors decided that after 118 years as a sleepy mutually owned bank it was time for a change. The board acknowledged that a small, community oriented savings bank in a large and highly competitive banking market would not be able to survive unless it developed more products and services ”“ and a strategy that revolved around serving the customer.
A new management team was brought in, led by president and CEO John Ritacco, who started his career in 1977 in Providence, R.I., at Industrial National Bank, which later became Fleet Bank.
“We changed the image of the bank ”“ from a sleepy mutual thrift that flew under the radar to one that was more visible, more esthetically pleasing, more business focused,” he said. “We ventured out into updating the technological platform of the bank, the internal structure. We went into new lines of business. Historically we were a ”¦ family residential mortgage lender, exclusively.”
He noted that the bank”™s most important mandate is to provide mortgages in communities from which it gets its deposits. “We hired a commercial lending staff and in four years transitioned from being a 98 percent residential mortgage lender to 58 percent, with 42 percent now commercial lending.”
The industry was changing, he said, the bank had to grow, and needed additional capital. “So we changed our charter to stock ownership, went public in 2007 and raised $20 million. That”™s when we began to remodel, rebuild and reinvigorate.” The bank started trading on the NASDAQ April 6, 2007, “and six months later we rang the closing bell. That was exciting.”
The bank, headquartered in White Plains, has branched out more through technology than building branches, of which it has only five ”“ Eastchester, Greenburgh, Mount Kisco, Harrison and Mount Vernon, where it started in 1887. It has 47 employees.
The technological improvements it has made include ways for customers to bank remotely, by online banking or check scanning deposit services for small business. It has also added telephone banking, online residential mortgage origination applications, bill pay, and online business banking options with a suite of business cash management related services.
It has not ignored its branch system, merging the White Plains branch into the Greenburgh branch, and then moving that branch and Eastchester to better locations with night depositories for commercial customers. In 2009 it added the Mount Kisco office, and will renovate its West Harrison branch this year.
Since 2005, loans have more than doubled to about $180 million and total assets have grown from $114 million to about $251 million.
The bank did not take any federal bailout money during the financial crisis of 2008. Â “We have stuck to standards that have been tried and true for years,” said Ritacco. Ritacco said community banking benefited from the financial crisis. “The consumer has come back to community banking because we are local, the employees are part of the community. If they have a problem they can call and get it resolved. There”™s no calling 1-800 numbers in distant places. We”™re seeing customers we would not have seen if the economy kept moving upward.”
Community Mutual is one of the banks that has committed to the Westchester County Association”™s business accelerator. So far it has commitments from five community banks for $100 million in debt financing. “The county organization has done a tremendous job corralling the needs of small business,” Ritacco said. “They can see that there”™s a light at the end of the tunnel and it”™s not a freight train.”Now people may see that small business can borrow and follow their dreams and have someone help them do that.”
The bank”™s charitable foundation has donated almost $280,000 since it was started in 2007, to organizations including Habitat for Humanity, ArtsWestchester and the March of Dimes.
For all this, the bank will receive the small business award from the Business Council of Westchester at its Hall of Fame Awards dinner April 19. Ritacco calls this “fantastic ”¦ a great compliment to the company and the people who work here.”
