Page 16 - BusinessWest September 18, 2023

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Peaking Their Interest
As It Marks B
ob Fraser acknowledged there’s a
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175 Years, MountainOne Strives to Be the Berkshires’ ‘Go-to Bank’
good deal of real estate between the Berkshires and the Bay State’s South Shore. He knows because he travers- es that distance regularly.
But for the somewhat unique financial- services institution known as MountainOne, which can trace its roots back to 1848, having bank branches and other facilities on opposite ends of the state, with nothing in between, really ... works.
“It has worked out well for us,” said Fraser, MountainOne’s president and CEO. “In the Berkshires, we have tended to be more of a traditional retail, community-based bank, and on the South Shore, we are much more com- mercially oriented. We do a lot of construction lending in and around the Greater Boston
MountainOne
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BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
markets, and we also do commercial lending; we have a pretty strong group of commercial lenders.
“In the Berkshires, we see ourselves being able to fill a void, with a high level of expertise in commercial lending within Berkshire Coun- ty and surrounding areas,” he went on, adding that this void has been created through large regionals either moving their headquarters from the Berkshires (as Berkshire Bank did) or expanding in other areas — leaving what Fra- ser considers opportunity for his bank in their wake.
Actually, there are many things that work for MountainOne, besides these differing focal points on either end of the state, including that aforementioned strong focus on commercial
Bob Fraser (left) and Matt Lauro