Page 27 - BusinessWest August 31, 2020
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Michael Tucker, president of Greenfield Cooperative Bank.
Uncharted I
Waters
Banks Continue to Navigate Their Way Through the COVID Crisis
t’s safe to say 2020 has been an unpredictable
year, testing the ability of all businesses to be nimble. Matt Sosik thinks banks are passing that test.
Banking & Finance
BusinessWest BANKING & FINANCE AUGUST 31, 2020 27
By Joseph Bednar
“Community banks may seem like they’re a staid industry, but we’re actually very accustomed to change, and sometimes a fast pace to that change,” said Sosik, president of bankESB. “So we’re used to it. It’s not always visible from the outside, but culturally, we were very well- positioned to deal with the pandemic.
“The unique thing was that it just seemed to happen so fast. It was zero to 60, and you can’t always move at that pace,” he added, noting that bankESB is part of a family of three different banks with almost 500 employ- ees. “But we pivoted as fast as we could.”
Part of that was recognizing that many customers were suddenly in turbid financial waters, and needed help. So, early in the pandemic, all banks were doing what they could to help them, whether that meant defer- ring mortgage loans for a few months or guiding busi- nesses through the hastily assembled Paycheck Protec- tion Program, or PPP.
