All Together Now
Dig into the term ‘true north,’ and you’re bound to find multiple definitions — at least when used metaphorically.
The phrase can refer to finding a sense of purpose, or pursuing an important goal, or even adhering to one’s true values.
All of that resonates with the leadership team at Hometown Financial Group that chose the name TruNorth Bank — which, later this year, will be the new name of Hometown’s family of banks.
It is, in fact, the name above the door (and on the checks) at the former North Shore Bank and Abington Bank, two Hometown acquisitions in Eastern Mass.; later this year, bankESB and bankHometown will undergo the same name change, casting a single identity across Hometown Financial’s network of 55 branches.
Matthew Sosik, president and CEO of bankESB and CEO of Hometown Financial Group, said the multi-name approach wasn’t sustainable, so the holding company set out to find a new identity, which it did last year, applying it first to the aforementioned pair of Eastern Mass. banks and eventually moving to convert all of them.
“It’s a lot of work to find a brand that works for you, but we were fortunate to come up with the TruNorth brand,” he told BusinessWest.
“Here we are in little Easthampton, sleepy Easthampton, with a $7 billion company, one of the largest banks in the region, one of the most successful banks in the region. I think our financials speak for themselves.”
This month, bankESB will begin talking to customers about what the bank is doing and why, and what the transaction will look like, Sosik said, adding that the data conversion — moving from separate databases of customers at each bank to one central database — will follow.
“When we’re done with this entire project, the combined company, with the new TruNorth brand, is going to be headquartered here,” Sosik said, before stressing the significance of a Western Mass.-based bank with that kind of reach and scale.
“At $7 billion or so, we’re probably top 200 in the country, while regionally, we’re easily one of the top 10. Here we are in little Easthampton, sleepy Easthampton, with a $7 billion company, one of the largest banks in the region, one of the most successful banks in the region. I think our financials speak for themselves. And regionally, we’re one of the largest employers — all based right here in Easthampton. I think that’s a cool story.”
Sosik said the official transaction is slated for Aug. 21 if everything goes smoothly.
“Obviously, we have separate bank boards, and communicating the rationale to our bank boards and then ultimately our staff, communicating what our strategy was, was all a big part of that. But now we have the green light.
“You might have seen the public notice of our application to merge the banks and rebrand as TruNorth,” he added. “That’s still pending with the two regulatory bodies, the Division of Banks and the Federal Reserve, but we’re not anticipating any issues with that. It’s an internal merger; it’s not something that would particularly catch their attention. So we expect approvals from them within a reasonable time.”
Sosik said he understands that people get nervous about name changes over bank doors. “They go, ‘wait, who’s buying whom?’ Obviously, there’s none of that here, but still people get anxious about it. In fact, it’s a converse story to that — we are pulling this company together, from Boston to Easthampton, and keeping it right here in Easthampton.”
Changes will be minimal for customers, he noted. “Obviously, there will be a new sign over the door and a new debit card with the TruNorth logo. The logo looks similar to bankESB’s and Hometown’s, just with that new TruNorth name. And the mobile app will have a new look to it. But other than that, it’s the same places, same people, new name over the door.”
“This rebrand, while it’s a name change over the door, also represents a significant nod to our history and the combined many hundreds of years of legacies within our company. We didn’t want to — and we don’t want to — forget that. We’re carrying that forward into the future with something that’s aspirational.”
And the idea is to make the transition as seamless as possible for those customers, he added.
“We have an unbelievable team that pulls everything together each time we do one of these. So this one will be no different — except this one’s a lot easier because it’s all internal,” he said.
Meanwhile, from that internal perspective, operating under one brand and one database will make the company easier to manage, he added. “We have been happy to run our multi-bank company, but this company will be a simpler day-to-day operation for us.”
Steady On
As for the TruNorth name, Sosik is grateful the team wound up with a name he considers apt and meaningful.
“Branding is important. And the reality is, in today’s world, in this day and age, unless you’re just going to pick a bunch of consonants and run them together, everything’s pretty much been used or taken in some fashion or form. At the onset of a project like this, a huge governor of where you can go is simply what’s available,” he explained.
“That said, we didn’t want just a word or a name that doesn’t have meaning to our present customers and our prospective customers. So we went through an exhaustive process, and when we landed on TruNorth, it was all about what that connotes to somebody who’s viewing our company, not just from an image perspective, but what do we stand for?”
What emerged was the idea of the true north directional signifying moving forward — in business growth and in the community — and expressing that idea succinctly.
“In marketing, you can’t have five-word name — you want something bite-sized, but that really does mean something and represents what this company is all about, legacy-wise, and speaks to both that legacy and a wide-open future,” Sosik went on. “So when we landed on TruNorth, that’s what it was all about for us. It just means something.
“It’ll be a change, of course. But as I said, this rebrand, while it’s a name change over the door, also represents a significant nod to our history and the combined many hundreds of years of legacies within our company,” he added. “We didn’t want to — and we don’t want to — forget that. We’re carrying that forward into the future with something that’s aspirational.”
With that, he came back to the importance of community connections in a bank’s legacy.
“Think of a vibrant New England community that is really economically successful, that does not have a community bank in it. It’s a small number, if there’s any.”
“One thing that these towns` need — and I say these towns very generically, not Easthampton only by any stretch, but every town that we’re in — they need a community bank,” Sosik said, with everything that definition entails, from the financial services business to how the institution supports local nonprofits and other organizations.
bankESB has done so consistently through its Giving Tree initiative, which distributed more than $716,000 in 2025 and more than $4.4 million over the past 10 years, with a focus on basic needs, financial literacy, economic development, youth and education, and the arts across the region.
“When we think about fulfilling those needs, we don’t think about our business like, ‘are we going to open tomorrow?’ We think about it in much larger chunks of time; at least I do, and our board does,” he added. So when the company makes a big change like the rebrand to TruNorth, “it’s all to ensure our long-term viability and relevance in every single market, Easthampton included, so that we can be here 10 years and 20 years and decades from now. That perspective really drives some of what people see as robust growth — and some might call aggressive growth. To us, it’s absolutely necessary if our goal is to be here for the long term for our communities.
“So, sometimes it takes rebrands and things like this to ensure all that. It’s all in the name of serving the very long-term needs of communities,” Sosik went on. “Think of a vibrant New England community that is really economically successful, that does not have a community bank in it. It’s a small number, if there’s any. So these community banks are super important to the success of communities in general. And, again, our goal is to be committed long-term to these communities. It takes some bold strategies and some difficult decisions, but we’re happy to do it.”
Looking Forward
After growing through multiple acquisitions, Sosik said bankESB — well, TruNorth — isn’t done, though no news of that nature is expected over the next several months.
“We obviously have a full plate of stuff here; you have a certain level of capacity, and you respect that; you don’t stretch it too far, so 2026 is spoken for. But we are working on other projects that will continue to grow us in size and footprint. We’ll have some really cool stuff going on for 2027.”
And that growth is necessary, he said, to provide the kind of scale necessary to be profitable in what he described as a low-margin business. The latest move to the TruNorth name is simply a way to become more efficient as well.
“Our multi-bank holding company strategy served us really well; it’s allowed us to to attract like-minded independent bankers. And now is the time to put it all together, to gain the rest of those cost efficiencies, so we’re getting that,” Sosik explained. “This gives us a jumping-off point to continue to grow, and, as I said, we have some really interesting projects heading into 2027 that’ll allow us to do that. So there’s lots of bright sunshine ahead in our news feed.”
