Page 17 - BusinessWest March 20, 2023

“We have more than 50,000 customers that support this bank in the communities we serve, and we want to continue to serve them for another 150 years.”
taking propositions,” Garrity noted. “Not only do they represent the bank out of the market, it’s a place for outbound activity, for a bank to get out in the com- munity and to make its presence felt.
“I think branch banking is really evolving,” he went on. “For us, that doesn’t mean we need a branch in each and every town and on every cor- ner — that wouldn’t be our model — but we’ll need more in Hampden County to get the most out of our network.”
Within this very crowded banking marketplace, Florence has what Garrity describes as some com- petitive advantages.
“It gets down to people,” he explained. “As we
look at what our strategic advantages are as we com-
pete in these markets, we have terrific people, and
that’s always a big strength that we’re going to have.
We’re also very locally focused; the deposit dollars
that we take in from Hampshire County and Hamp-
den County are being redeployed in Hampshire
County and Hampden County, and from a philanthropic perspec- tive, this organization is focused on these communities as well.
“Over the past five years, this organization has donated to chari- table causes in this region close to $3 million,” he went on. “So there’s a significant commitment that we have, and this is part of what helps us continue to be relevant over these past 150 years. One of the founding principles of the bank back in 1873 was ‘neigh- bors helping neighbors,’ and that’s as important to us today as it was back then.”
People, meaning the team at the bank, are also a key component in the growth strategy for the commercial-lending side of the ledger, said Garrity, adding that there is no shortage of competition in this realm, either.
“It’s the people that help you stand out, people and the ability to bring solutions. The advantage of working with a bank such as Flor- ence Bank, given our size and what I’ll call our flat structure and local decision making, is we can get the right people around a table to make a good, common-sense answer for our client — a custom
Florence Bank’s branch in Chicopee is the latest addition to the portfolio.
Staff Photo
solution. That is a distinct advantage that we would have over some of our larger competitors that are more decentralized and a little more pigeonholed from a policy perspective.”
He noted that the commercial market was strong in 2022 because many businesses that were on the fence decided to move ahead before interest rates went up. They did rise, considerably, and these increases, coupled with uncertainty concerning the economy and other headwinds, has slowed the commercial market in recent months, he went on, adding that this is a nationwide phe- nomenon and one that bears watching in the coming months.
The same can be said for the residential mar- ket, which has slowed dramatically in recent
Garrity
Continued on page 50
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